


The Path to the Trials

by Anoke



Series: Some Fucking *Bullshit* [4]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Eskel (The Witcher)/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Gen, Lambert's backstory is depressing as hell you guys, Minor pairings - Freeform, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Lambert (The Witcher), Past Child Abuse, Trans Character, canon-typical child abuse, gender nonconforming Lambert (The Witcher), gross dead animal nonsense, standard warnings for the whole system that creates Witchers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:02:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25895626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anoke/pseuds/Anoke
Summary: Lambert's first and last winter as a human at Kaer Morhen, and the Trials afterwards.Note: this was written collaboratively and directly in parallel withBomberqueen17'sstoryLearning Experiences!
Series: Some Fucking *Bullshit* [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1755709
Comments: 244
Kudos: 150





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Learning Experiences](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26121523) by [bomberqueen17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17). 



> And here we are, not quite a month later! I'm collaborating with Bomberqueen17 for part of this fic, so this and an as-yet-unnamed fic she's writing about the first time Geralt comes back to Kaer Morhen are going to have a little bit of overlap. Hopefully everyone enjoys it!

Jorik arrived back at Kaer Morhen just after Saovine. He’d had a damn hard fight with the weather-witch fucking with the storms on the eastern side of the Kestrel Mountains, and had needed to hurry back before the passes were completely choked with snow, taking less additional provisions with him back to the keep than he’d wanted to. At least the madman hadn’t managed to give him any new scars; no pay was quite enough of a reminder of why Witchers preferred not to fuck around with mages.

He made sure Adder was taken care of and headed into the main keep, exchanging a few words with other Witchers along the way to dump his things in his room. He’d have the opportunity to catch up more thoroughly at supper, but right now they were mostly busy and he was fucking freezing. It hadn’t been snowing too hard yet, but there’d been an icy wind blowing through the river valley the entire journey up, and he was _absolutely_ going to be taking advantage of his free afternoon to sit in the hot springs until he’d soaked the chill out of his bones.

To that end, he got out of his armor and collected his soap and comb before heading down into the springs under the tower. Despite the carved channels to the outside to funnel river water in, it was always dark as fuck down here, to the point where Jorik had to light a couple of candles so that he didn’t trip over any of the large rocks they’d hauled in. Once he could see where everything was, he took the time for a deep breath, enjoying the warm, humid air and even the smell of sulfur from the springs.

He stripped out of his clothes and traded them for a bucket and washcloth from one of the wooden shelves that lined the walls of the room, then scooped up water from the pools and the river, and set to washing off before he got in to soak. When he was done, rather than re-braid his hair, he just pulled it all up and out of the way and secured it with the tie. He then put all the wash things aside and walked into the hottest pool, one that only had a slight trickle of cold water coming into it. He sank down until the water was up to his lips and closed his eyes in bliss as he finally started heating up. 

Some time later, Jorik woke out of a light doze to the sound of kids laughing and talking loudly. 

_That’s either the younger cohort or the Bastion boys,_ he thought to himself. _Mmm, don’t want to get up yet._

He sank a little deeper into the water. It was very unlikely that any of the kids would try to get into this particular pool; it was small and with the current water mix it would probably be uncomfortable for a prepubescent trainee and actively painful for an unmutated child.

Varin entered the room first. His gaze immediately flicked across the room until he found Jorik, and the Bastion Swordmaster inclined his head very slightly before lighting a lot more of the candles scattered around with a few bursts of Igni. Jorik adjusted his eyes and watched the kids, around two dozen all told, all between the ages of six and ten, scramble in, excited and flushed and talkative.

 _Ah._ There was Lambert, near the back of the group.

Jorik watched him as he undressed and washed. The kid would probably always be a little on the small side; not enough food early on could do that. But he’d put on a huge amount of muscle, for only having had about four months to do it, and shot up at least an inch. He had a smattering of bruises and scrapes, but none of them were as large or as deep as what he’d had from his abusive jackass of a father. Overall, he looked healthy; well fed and in better shape than before.

Jorik frowned a little as Lambert slid into a pool on his own, not paying attention to any of the others. He wasn’t necessarily expecting Lambert to have suddenly become a social butterfly, but the apparent lack of any interaction was more than a little concerning. The other kids were roughhousing with each other just gently enough that Varin didn’t snap at them for it and eagerly anticipating the lighter winter duties that would give them some more free time. Lambert just looked like he was trying not to fall asleep; he didn’t seem to be listening to the others at all.

The kid was as observant as ever, though; he looked up and right at Jorik after a minute or so. Jorik could see the moment he recognized him—his eyes went wide and he went still. Jorik couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed, but he nodded to Lambert, trying not to look threatening. It mostly seemed to work; he unfroze and didn’t just stare at Jorik.

“Time’s up, children,” Varin barked not too much later. 

That meant it was about time for Jorik to get up too, though he waited until all the kids had filed out and started up the stairs. Varin was hanging back a bit, and when the last child was out of human earshot, he shook his head with a growl.

“Not one of those little brats except yours even noticed you were here,” he said.

Jorik shrugged a shoulder as he stood up. There wasn’t really anything to say to that—Varin was correct, and despite Kaer Morhen being the safest place a Wolf Witcher was probably ever going to be, not even registering his presence was a pretty big potential problem for the ten or so kids who would theoretically be undergoing the Trials in the spring.

“At least you’ve given me an outline of what to work on over the winter,” Varin said, scowling up the stairs.

“Actually,” Jorik started, picking up a cloth to dry himself off with.

Varin knew exactly what he meant. “Startlingly well. He can’t practice swordwork outside hours, but he’s been taking stances whenever he has a moment and he’s made strength-building exercises out of everything else that he’s doing. Had to stop him going overboard once or twice.”

Jorik’s lips twitched. “That sounds about right.”

Varin eyed him. “He’s not top of the class, but he’s better than a few of the older half on only four months of work. If he keeps the pace up I’m going to recommend him for the Trials.”

With that, Varin walked out. Jorik wondered if he should follow after and thank the man, but decided it was probably pointless. He’d never known the prickly Master to be interested in social rituals of any kind; the report on Lambert’s progress was likely based on letting Jorik know whether or not he would need to plan to take the kid somewhere else at the end of winter. With that in mind, Jorik finished drying off and collected his things before heading back up to his room to get ready for supper.

Supper wasn’t exactly a formal meal for the older Witchers, but there was a general time span when the kitchen would be serving, with at least a couple of stages of dishes so you weren’t left with dry meat and bread and overcooked vegetables if you came in near the end. Jorik figured he might as well eat now and try to get to sleep early, and headed down after throwing on some less rank clothes and tying his hair back. The younger cohort looked to be on kitchen duty tonight; the trainees cycled through helping to prepare meals, under the supervision of the head cook Petr and two to three other assistants. As winter really set in, some of the Witchers would join in as well, to help lift the burden of another forty or more mutated mouths to feed.

Jorik took a plate from the serving area in the main part of the keep, nodding to the Witcher who was watching the trainees there. The Bastion boys were already eating, along with a few other Witchers that Jorik knew but wasn't close friends with. Iaion, Yves, and Zofia welcomed him all the same, and he sat and happily gossiped in between bites of venison with fresh-picked wild mushrooms in a brown sauce and potatoes with plenty of salt and pepper, and rye bread to sop up the juices. His eye couldn’t help being drawn over to the Bastion boys, though, especially when he saw Lambert taking a huge bite of potato and showing off that his missing eyetooth had been a permanent one.

 _Damn,_ Jorik couldn’t help thinking. He’d hoped that the tooth hadn’t been one of the adult set. If Lambert went through the Trials—if he went through the Trials _and lived_ , he’d grow a new one, but if this wasn’t for him, he’d be stuck without it.

He relented and just kept half an eye on the kid after that. Lambert clearly wasn’t too fond of the taste of the herbal tea the Bastion boys got, but he downed it all in one long draught before switching to water. Jorik didn’t exactly blame him; the cultivated mushrooms at least could be disguised with seasoning, but nothing could hide the dry, bitter taste of the herbs.

When the kids left for their communal rooms, Jorik forcibly quashed the impulse to trail after them and focused on the ale that Zofia had poured him. More Witchers were starting to trail in, and there he _did_ see some of his friends, Arcturus and Lukas and Moldnar, and Lukas’ friend Kavan. He waved them over as they passed, and they all sat down with their plates as the other Witchers at the table left.

“Was starting to wonder if we’d see you this winter,” Arcturus said as he slid along the bench to press up against Jorik.

Jorik laughed and leaned into him in return. Arcturus and the others had a light coating of dust and reeked of sweat, so they’d probably been roped into heavy repairs. It was good, being around them again. He never realized quite how much he missed wintering with his brothers until the time came around again.

“So, what did you get up to these past two years?” Lukas asked around a huge mouthful of venison.

Jorik groaned theatrically.

“That bad, huh,” Kavan said.

“I asked for the Law of Surprise,” Jorik said, cutting right to it. “He’s with the Bastion kids now.”

That got a reaction from everyone, from starlement to amusement.

“ _You_ asked for a Surprise?” Moldnar said when the noise died down.

“Drunken jackass of a man,” Jorik said heatedly. “It was a pain in the ass saving him, and instead of a damn chicken or something—”

“You’re now a dad,” Arcturus said, laughing. “Does that make us all uncles?”

Jorik’s smile faded a bit. “He wasn’t very happy coming with me. Even less finding out about the Trials.”

“Oh, that’s rough,” Lukas said, grimacing, as Arcturus nudged his knee into Jorik’s leg a little more firmly. Lukas had been picked up from an illicit slave trader in Lyria, but Kavan had had a family, Jorik remembered.

“It is,” he sighed. “He’s doing well enough here, though which is probably for the better— managed to alienate half the main Temple teachers in just two days. Ah. Nenneke’s in Ellander, too, I got to see her.”

“You did?” Moldnar asked, clearly interested. Jorik had always suspected he had more than a little bit of a crush on the priestess. “How’s she getting on?”

“Very well,” Jorik said with a grin. “Already ordering everyone else around, not that she’d admit it.”

“Now _that_ sounds like her,” Kavan said with a wry smile. “She’s going to be in charge of the whole damn place inside three decades, just you wait.”

“I’ve no doubt,” Jorik said, and downed the rest of his ale.

From there the conversation moved on to what the other four had been doing since he’d seen them last, and lasted all the way through the end of the kitchen serving. Jorik would have been happy to have kept talking, but Kavan bowed out to head for the baths, and the other three went with him, which was entirely fair.

Deprived of company for the moment, Jorik went to find Szymon to get assigned to a work crew for the morrow. He resisted the urge to request to help out with the kids and instead signed up to help rebuild walls, same as Arcturus. Thankfully masonry wasn’t a terribly popular job and there was still space for him. Responsibilities taken care of, Jorik headed back up to his room, yawning as he went. Despite a couple of half-formed ideas about waiting up, he was asleep more or less the moment his head hit his much-abused down pillow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes yes, I have caved to the lure of hot springs. In my defense, Kaer Morhen is in a spot where, geologically, hot springs could make sense, and the south tower basement is flooded in Witcher 1, so I'm going with it.
> 
> Incidentally, if anyone wants the tale of Jorik and the mage fucking with the weather...


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, if you're noticing that this all seems familiar, that's because this was written collaboratively and directly in parallel with [Bomberqueen17's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17) story [Learning Experiences](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26121523)! I highly suggest reading her version, it's amazing.

Lambert couldn’t help lying awake that night, holding Zdena and listening to the other kids sleeping. Jonah snored, Moritz sometimes babbled random words and had to be told ‘shut _up_ , Moritz’ before he’d stop, Owen had nightmares, and Sven thrashed around enough to have fallen out of his bed at least once before. It wasn’t like they were _more_ disruptive than his dad had been, but it was different. And he still wasn’t used enough to it, sometimes, especially when he couldn’t stop thinking about something.

Jorik was back.

It shouldn’t have been that big a deal. He’d known, more or less, that what Varin had insisted on calling a trial period was basically up, when other Witchers had started streaming in to stay over the winter. He just hadn’t expected Jorik to come back. Lambert had been pretty clear, he’d thought. 

Maybe he wasn’t up to Varin’s standards. He hadn’t thought the Witchers would just let him go, but maybe he wasn’t doing well enough for them to want to bother with trying to mutate him. He definitely wasn’t better than Haken, or Nazgil, or Hen, or Ythen, like he’d sworn to be. He was better than Rogen and Pip, but they didn’t seem to be particularly good anyway—Rogen kept making excuses for not working hard, and Pip kept trying to act like he was a lot bigger than he was. Lambert got how grating it was to be the smallest, but it was stupid to fight like you weren’t—hell, he _was_ the smallest, by enough that Pip had told the other boys they should call _Lambert_ Pipsqueak now. He’d almost punched Pip over that, but Tomas, who oversaw them for stuff that wasn’t training, had walked in, and he hadn’t wanted to test the tall Witcher.

He _had_ improved, and quickly, at least by his standards. Varin had started him with a bunch of kids who were much younger than him, and the only thing more humiliating than being stuck with them was them _beating_ him at everything. So he’d worked hard. He’d eaten all of the weird mushrooms and drank all the gross herbal tea, and when Varin had told him not to do as much as he was doing unless he wanted to hurt himself and burn out—which had pissed him off because he thought the jackass might be right—he’d stepped back a bit and then stepped things up once he was used to it enough that he wasn’t asleep the second he lay down. 

Maybe the better boys had their own extra routines, but he hadn’t seen them, too busy working on his own. And anyway, all of _them_ had known each other for at least a couple years already. Haken had apparently been brought to the keep as a _baby_ ; he’d mentioned it in one long breathless hello when they’d first met. Lambert couldn’t see any reason, other than setting him up for something, to be so friendly—he was well aware that he was an inexperienced outsider here, no matter how friendly the other kids pretended to be.

He had managed to keep Zdena a secret, at least, though some of that was from not being able to spend time with them. He didn’t want to get Zdena’s pretty clothes covered in sweat, so he’d had to leave them hidden while he trained and while he did his extra work, running up the stairwells or doing push-ups or other stuff Varin made them do to build their strength.

Varin acted like he wasn’t going to go easy on them for the winter, but Lambert lying here awake said maybe he was going easier. If he was, then Lambert would have to step things up—

 _Why are you **trying** to prove that you can get killed by the mutations?_ Lambert thought, with a sudden rush of anger. The other boys talked about the upcoming Trials like they were something _interesting_ , like the fact that probably only three of them would live through them at all wasn’t a thought that ever entered their damn heads. He didn’t understand it. He didn’t. But he didn’t want to give up food and warmth and people teaching him how to be _very dangerous_ either, not for an entirely new group of strangers where he’d probably always be not _really_ theirs. 

He discussed it very quietly with Zdena until he heard people starting to move around in the keep, then put them away and got up and fully dressed. If he started chores early he could maybe sneak in a nap after breakfast.

* * *

Arcturus woke Jorik the next morning, trying to ambush him in his sleep. Jorik let him get next to the bed and then shot up, getting a hold around Arcturus’ neck and pulling him down into the bed. They wrestled for a bit, laughing, until Jorik got a good pin on the other man and ground his face into the pillow.

“I yield, I yield!” Arcturus said, muffled by the fabric, almost giggling.

“Good,” Jorik said breathlessly, and let him up, stepping back so Arcturus couldn’t grab him.

Arcturus turned over and sprawled gracelessly across Jorik’s bed. “I was going to say you were getting old, falling asleep before I came up last night, but I guess you showed me,” he said with a grin.

Jorik grinned back and said, “Guess I did.”

“Well, we have some time before we need to meet the work group,” Arcturus said, arching his brows.

Jorik considered for a moment, moving closer, but the other chance was too good to miss. He yanked Arcturus off the bed by his ankle instead, and laughed at the yelp.

“I’d rather have breakfast today,” he said. “I haven’t been back for a month already, unlike _some_ people.”

Arcturus gestured rudely at him, but the effect was ruined by the smile. Jorik gave him a hand and hauled him to his feet, then headed over to his wardrobe and pulled on some clothes that he wouldn’t mind getting mortar on. When he was dressed, he and Arcturus walked downstairs, shoulder to shoulder.

* * *

Wall building went pretty well that day, and they finished the section they were working on early enough that they were able to clean off before heading into the great hall to eat that evening. The other three were there already, at one end of a long table; Moldnar was telling Lukas and Kavan about a wyvern he’d seen while out hunting.

“We’d have to do most of the preserving, but it wouldn’t be a bad thing to lay in extra meat while we can,” he said.

“Well, if the thing’s not nested too far away or in some inaccessible crevasse somewhere, I’d be willing to help,” Lukas said.

“If the kitchen’s too busy, you can count me for preserving,” Jorik added. He rather liked wyvern, and it was always good to have extra meat for winter.

The conversation continued until they were all mostly done with their food. Jorik, tilting his head back to drain his cup, saw a flash of white out of the corner of his eye and looked over.

There was a Witcher headed over to their table that Jorik didn’t remember having met before—tall, long white hair, basically no scars. He had to be young, and Jorik felt like he might have seen the kid among the trainees before. There was something about his face, though, that Jorik thought that he should recognize beyond that.

“Geralt,” Arcturus murmured to him as the white-haired kid drew level with the table, and realization struck.

“I— Geralt!” Jorik said in surprise. “Is it really?”

“It’s me,” Geralt said.

“When did you get so _enormous_?” Jorik asked, astonished. He mostly remembered Geralt as a tiny, skinny redhead, covered in freckles and always getting into some trouble or another, always interested in hanging out and playing with the adults and hearing stories. He had to stand up to be able to look more-or-less straight at Geralt's face, and even then the kid was still a couple of inches taller.

“It was a couple years back,” Arcturus said, nudging him slightly. “Don’t get me wrong, it happened fast, but it was a bit ago, now.”

Jorik shook his head in slight disbelief, and then clapped Geralt on the shoulder, smiling at him. “You were so,” he started, then realized it probably wouldn’t be kind to gush about how sweet Geralt had been as a kid. “Well— come, sit,” and he held his hand out for the pitcher of ale they’d been sharing. Moldnar passed over a cup, too, which Jorik filled and handed to Geralt. “Tell us how the Path has been treating you.”

Geralt sat, and carefully volunteered a story about a contract for a chort that turned out to have been a completely mundane goat. The kid had a pretty good sense of comedic timing, and none of them could help snorting as Geralt earnestly described hauling the stubborn animal back to town to prove that he’d solved the problem. They all toasted the kid, and Kavan mentioned the one time he’d managed to get paid for a wraith by permanently evicting an obnoxiously loud owl from someone’s barn, and Arcturus pulled out his old chestnut about a phantom that had just been a teenager sneaking out to meet friends. Jorik contributed the story about the man in Ellander who’d been suffering poisoning, which he hadn’t mentioned before, and which got him a faux-outraged elbow from Arcturus.

Moldnar piped up just after he’d finished. “Jorik, for the youngling’s sake, you have to tell him about your Law of Surprise.”

Jorik gave him a quick look of startlement, and Moldnar raised his eyebrows. Well, fair enough.

“Ah, Geralt,” he started with a sigh. “I know you’ve been cautioned about the Law of Surprise. _I_ was cautioned about the Law of Surprise. But I rescued a man from nekkers, and he had nothing, and I thought, you know. I have never in my entire career invoked the Law of Surprise. What would be the harm of it now? Surely it was a good time to use it?”

Geralt’s face took on a slightly alarmed cast. “What did you wind up with?”

Jorik shook his head. “A nine-year-old boy,” he said. A stubborn, hurt, brilliant nine-year-old boy.

Geralt’s face underwent a couple of complicated expressions, and settled on concern. “Oh no,” he said. 

“Poor kid,” Jorik said. “What could I do? I had to take him, if I left him there the next thing that went wrong would get blamed on him, for messing with Destiny like that.”

“What did you do?” Geralt asked.

“I brought him back here,” Jorik said, with a sigh.

"Not before trying to foist him off on the Temple of Melitele first," Arcturus added with a sly smile.

Jorik elbowed him, and said somberly, refusing to rise to the bait, "He was... temperamentally unsuited to Temple life."

“Nine,” Geralt said, frowning a little. “Is that too old?”

“Depends on the kid,” Jorik said.

“I was almost ten when I came here,” Kavan said, a little unexpectedly. 

“I was eight or so,” Moldnar said.

Jorik smiled at Geralt. “You came here as a baby, didn’t you?”

“Three,” Geralt said, looking somewhat pensive. “You used to play with me, I remember that.”

“I did,” Jorik said, trying not to let his smile go soppy. “You looked very different then.”

“I remember sitting on your shoulders,” Geralt said. 

Jorik laughed, a little charmed. That had been one of the nicest parts of Geralt as a child. Easy physical affection from the toddlers was always a balm, but Geralt had been _so_ interested in spending time with them, and anyone who’d been around when he was a baby had given in and hauled him around for at least a little while. 

“If you tried it now you’d squash me flat, you enormous thing.” He clapped Geralt on the shoulder again and shook him just a little, letting go abruptly when Geralt’s face twitched slightly in what might be pain. “Truly, the size of you— I never expected you’d turn out so huge,” he continued, not acknowledging the flinch—if Geralt hadn’t mentioned an injury, he clearly didn’t want it brought up.

“Gweld’s still bigger,” Geralt said with the tiniest shrug, which was a little ridiculous—Gweld was probably the biggest Witcher the Wolves had.

Just then another young Witcher called out. “Geralt! Geralt! It’s his first time back!” 

The man drew a crowd over with him, and Geralt was soon surrounded by enthusiastic young Witchers, handing him drinks and quizzing him on his adventures. Geralt was rapidly overwhelmed by the crush of people, looking more than a little uncomfortable, and wound up practically gluing himself to Vesemir when the old Witcher came in with a plate and several more Witchers and _those_ Witchers started talking to Geralt too. Poor kid. Most of the time Witchers from a cohort came home during the same winter, so the enthusiasm was spread out a bit, but it had only been Gweld, Holda, and Sasha home the last time Jorik had been at Kaer Morhen, and apparently Geralt hadn’t been back last winter either.

Spirits were high, though, and Jorik and the others stuck around as the evening continued on. Moldnar got into a passionate conversation with Aubry about daggers, Kavan started playing cards with Ilmar while Lukas looked over his shoulder, and Arcturus leaned up against him while chatting with anyone who came into range and roped Jorik in on any pretext.

“I don’t even have to start my own conversations with you around,” Jorik said to Arcturus with a grin.

“You wouldn’t start _any_ conversations without me around,” Arcturus said back jokingly, and Jorik laughed. He wasn’t nearly as taciturn as Arcturus made him out to be, but Arcturus was especially gregarious.

Around the time when Petr and the other kitchen staff came into the hall, done with their work for the moment, Jorik noticed Rennes and Heironymous walking in from the north tower stairwell. They headed through the crowd, which respectfully made room, and wound up next to Geralt’s snowy white head. Heironymous said something to the kid and clapped him on the shoulder, and Jorik frowned a bit as Geralt only just barely didn't flinch.

“Now what’s that about?” he asked Arcturus quietly. Every Witcher here had a wary respect for the mage’s capabilities despite the man’s downright kind, if a touch scatterbrained, nature, but Geralt looked almost afraid.

“Ah,” Arcturus said, subdued. “Kid went through two rounds of Trials, remember? Probably left a hell of an impression.”

“Ah, shit,” Jorik muttered. “That would make sense.”

Rennes began speaking, and the other Witchers fell quiet as the head of their school spoke. After welcoming Geralt, he took a mug of ale Vesemir had poured for him and looked around the room before addressing them all.

“And so here we all are,” Rennes said, not loudly, but projecting so that everyone would be able to hear. “Back for another winter with our compatriots,” he said with a look around. “Soon the pass will be closed—there’s a storm coming within the next couple of days. We’ve much to do this winter and there’s little point to make a fuss, but it gladdens my heart to see all of you here.”

Rennes raised his cup, and said, “To another winter, together again,” and Jorik and Arcturus, and every other Witcher, raised theirs and drank with him. Another year on the Path, and another season at home.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo! okay, since I write shorter chapters than Bomberqueen17 does, the events covered in her chapter 2 are going to comprise chapters 3 and 4 of my fic. 4 will be going up later today!
> 
> Check the end notes for some warnings, as usual.

“We’re looking at a heavy storm within the next few days,” Varin barked at them the next morning. “We’ll be taking advantage of the clear weather while we can. Today’s a Gauntlet day. Follow the single diamond trail markers and don’t break anything before midday.”

That got Lambert’s attention. He hadn’t been on that section yet, and it was going to be more difficult than what they’d been on so far.

 _Shit._ Lambert resigned himself to being the last one done, _again_ , as they headed out the gates to the start of the Gauntlet.

The start of the trail was carefully marked, and they all set out at a trot. They'd mostly end up sticking together until they hit the first marker, and then they'd end up splitting off as they went over or through various obstacles. It was fucking cold out, and running in it meant that you were constantly getting chilled air to the face. It wasn't quite bad enough that Lambert wished that he’d grabbed a scarf or hat from the semi-communal pile of clothes kept for the trainees, but he was already planning to eat quickly at midday and use the extra time to go sit in the cavern with the hot springs.

They hit a section of woodland with a bunch of downed trees and large boulders not too far in, and all split off from each other. Lambert was by himself, as usual, but a couple of the others stuck close to one another. Lambert found a boulder with the marker on it and continued along the path at a trot, heading across a downed tree and through another section of woods that took a good while to navigate. The next marker led him along the side of a small stone path going up a rise. 

Lambert crested the rise after a few minutes and saw a person standing in a really wide gully that cut through the trail, one that Lambert definitely wouldn’t be able to jump across on his own, with a far side that looked way too steep and pebbly to climb up with any kind of ease. He slowed to a halt, not sure he wanted to trust this ghostly pale stranger.

“Come on,” the man said, “you won’t make it if you don’t commit,” and held out his hand.

“Who are you?” Lambert demanded, looking at him. He was _huge_ , all over, tall with broad shoulders, arms and legs, and big hands. His skin was whiter than Lambert had ever seen before, emphasized by dark-colored clothes. His _hair_ was even white, but he didn’t look old—and he definitely had the slit eyes, and the wolf medallion. 

“Geralt,” the Witcher said. “We’re not here to chat, kid,” he added, shaking his head. “If you’re not confident enough to do it, then don’t, but you’ve got to go or get out of the way.”

Lambert tried not to glare. Varin had mentioned, not too long ago, that some of the more advanced loops on the Gauntlet involved getting help from adult Witchers, but he hadn’t explained what that meant well enough for Lambert. “I’ll do it, but tell me what you’re going to do first.”

“If you get a running jump and grab my hand I can sling you across the gap,” the Witcher said. “I’ve done it four times just now, I know how hard to throw you. You’ve just got to be ready for it, and then let go when I do, and put your hands out and catch, and you’ll be there.”

Lambert looked at him for a moment. He had a much better idea by now of just how strong and fast Witchers actually were, and obviously none of the other kids were stuck here—although, only four of them?—so he nodded, once, and started backing up for a running start.

“Keep going,” the Witcher said, waving him farther back. “All right, now!”

Lambert pelted as fast as he could at the edge of the gully and leaped, holding out his hands and refusing to think about how much landing was going to hurt if he missed. But the Witcher grabbed him and sent him flying, over the higher far end of the gully. Lambert managed to land on his feet on the other side and had to keep going or fall over. He slowed down a little bit once he had his feet under him again; he didn’t want to fall off of an edge or run into a tree or something because he was moving too fast.

The loop of the Gauntlet turned out to include another spot where a Witcher was waiting to help. Lambert recognized this one; Kavan, his name was, and he’d been helping with training almost since he’d showed up at the keep. He had golden-toned skin a bit like Rennes’, though Kavan’s hair was black instead of Rennes’ white, and their faces were different shapes. Kavan was much quieter than Varin, which Lambert definitely didn’t mind. 

Kavan gave him a boost, anyway, and Lambert kept going. He’d already suspected it, but this loop almost didn’t overlap at all with the one they'd been going on up until now; there were almost no trail markers for any of the easier loops. There were also a couple of obstacles along the way which slowed Lambert to essentially a crawl, including along a worryingly narrow path over a chasm. He edged across the narrow strip of stone like he would a tree branch, straddling the rock, planting his hands firmly and swinging his legs forward to move across it.

That was the hardest part, at least. The rest wasn’t nearly as bad, and Lambert trotted back into the courtyard where Varin had been working with them since they’d moved down from the Bastion when the sun was almost directly overhead. He had to stop and look around, because there were only four other boys back.

“Get over here,” Varin called, jerking his head, and Lambert scowled but hopped to.

The four back were Haken, Hen, Ythen, and, somewhat surprisingly, Owen. Lambert shivered a little; he’d sweated while running, and now that he wasn’t moving, he was starting to feel cold and clammy.

“You five, go eat, meet back here in an hour,” Varin ordered. They all scattered before he could change his mind and make them do push-ups or something until the others got back.

* * *

Lambert managed to sneak into the hot springs to sit for a little while before they were all due back. Nobody else was down there, or at least he’d thought; none of the candles had been lit. He couldn’t see a fucking thing without them, to the point where there were little spots dancing in front of his eyes, but it was warm and quiet and he stayed right by the door so he couldn’t do something stupid like fall into one of the pools and just—breathed, for a while.

Everyone was back and basically unharmed when they all returned to the training yard, including Kavan. Varin lined them up and had them start sword drills.

“We’ll be introducing a new form today,” he said after an hour or two of him calling patterns, with Kavan correcting them if they fucked up, and keeping count for later. Lambert was going to be doing a lot of work as corrections for screwing up afterwards, but at least he wasn’t dead last anymore.

Varin walked them through the new move, and Lambert tried to memorize all the steps. It was more complicated than most of what they were already doing; a parry against a high attack that led into a strike, and even Nazgil, who was probably the best with swords, was having some trouble with the movements.

“Sword tip _up_ ,” Varin told Pip. “Defend against me.”

Lambert couldn’t help watching out of the corner of his eye as Varin played the attacker. Sure enough, Pip dropped the tip of his sword, and Varin smacked him with the flat of his sword across his collarbone. Pip yelped.

“That wasn’t even hard enough to bruise,” Varin snapped. “If you were in a real fight you’d be dead. Again!”

 _“Quit yer snivelling, boy, it’s barely even bleeding!”_ Lambert shook his head to clear his dad’s voice from it. It was stupid. Varin hadn’t even done so much as box his ears yet. He kept practicing, trying to make sure his movements were completely correct. Kavan went over to Moritz and paired with him to practice the parry, and it wasn’t too long before Lambert heard a noise of pain from there too. He gritted his teeth and kept doing what he was doing. Bruises were something that happened. He’d gotten plenty from the other boys, and given out some in return, it wasn’t like that was _new._

Kavan walked over some time later. Lambert looked up into his face, noted his lips were moving, but he didn’t really hear anything. Whatever. He knew why Kavan was here. Lambert nodded when Kavan stopped speaking.

 _I just have to parry and strike,_ Lambert thought. _I just have to—_

Kavan swung, and Lambert—

_“How **dare** you raise your hand to your father, **boy!** ”_

—froze. He felt the blow across his cheek, and turned his head with it, sometimes that helped. He needed to move. He needed to— someone was talking, he shouldn’t just be _standing there_ like a lump, he should be doing something, but he couldn’t force his limbs to move. People were moving, and talking, and he didn’t understand any of it, and then a big white blur moved into his view and he couldn’t help flinching.

“Sit down,” whoever-it-was said, the sound only just making it through the roaring in Lambert’s ears. “Here. Sit right here. Sit with me. I’m going to put my hand on your back, right in the middle. Okay?”

Lambert tried to nod, but he wasn’t sure if he managed to move. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be touched but he also felt like he was going to _unspool_ , and suddenly someone was just pressing, gently, on his back, and maybe that was okay.

“Now you’re going to breathe with me. Slow down. Okay? In,” then a pause as they counted, “Out.” 

Lambert tried to keep the right pace, but he kept losing it and gasping. He couldn’t even fucking _breathe_ right, this was _bullshit_ — but the counting kept going, and he could still feel the big, warm hand on his back, and maybe— he focused on it for a minute, that and the counting. He heard whoever-it-was and Kavan talking, but he finally felt like he wasn’t just going to pass out, so he just tried to keep breathing steadily without the counting.

“I just used to get these fits where everything was too much and it all stopped working for a bit,” Lambert heard the white guy say, and between one breath and the next his vision cleared, a little.

Lambert recognized the guy, now that his vision wasn’t blurred; it was the one Witcher from the Gauntlet that morning, Geralt. _Shit_ , Geralt hadn’t been helping Varin. Why was he over here? How badly had he fucked up? 

“It’s all right,” Geralt said, as things were starting to go a little fuzzy again. “Just breathe. You need to keep breathing. They teach you meditation yet?”

“A— a little,” Lambert said. Varin always ended the day with it, but he was never sure if he was doing it right. He was always way too aware of the other kids around him, the noises they made, the other Witchers talking to each other as they finished tasks.

“That’s where we’re headed,” Geralt said. “You focus on your breathing and find your center like that. It helps.”

“Are you nearly done?” Varin snapped. 

_Oh, **fuck**._ Lambert hadn’t even noticed him coming over, that was so _stupid_.

“Nearly,” Geralt said, and didn’t move, and that was—

Kavan had stood up again, and said something to Varin before crouching back down near them.

“I got a feeling maybe grown-ups shouldn’t hit this kid in the face,” Geralt said. “Like, just as a general practice. I bet if another kid did it he wouldn’t have a problem.”

“I’m not scared to get hit,” Lambert said, upset. He _wasn’t_ scared of it. He didn’t _like_ it, but he wasn’t _afraid_ of getting smacked.

“It’s not about _scared_ ,” Geralt said. “That fit you had, that’s what happens when your body’s telling you too many things at once. For me it was after I got mutated and I couldn’t handle all the sounds and smells and sensations all at once, and I’d just stop working until I got a chance to sort them out. But I bet someone taught you not to fight back when they hit you, and then Varin’s been teaching you that you have to fight back when you get hit, and it’s real hard for your brain to figure out how to do both of those things at once.”

How had he— he’d just _figured it out_ , right like that? Geralt had been able to figure out his dad had been hitting him, just from _one thing?_ What the _fuck_ had been wrong with everyone else, if it was that easy to tell—had they just not _cared?—_ and it had fucked up his reactions this badly?

“So I just have to figure it out,” Lambert said, looking at Geralt. He wasn’t about to give up learning how to hurt people bigger than him, and he needed to know how to halt a blow.

“Mm,” Geralt said, looking thoughtful. “Knowing what it was helped me. I grew out of it eventually.” 

“What about Idrik?” Kavan asked. “Did he grow out of it?”

“No,” Geralt said, “he didn’t get a chance, he died in the second Trials of the Grasses.”

“The _second_ ,” Kavan started, then gave Geralt a long look. “Ah.”

 _That_ caught Lambert’s attention. What the hell was this about a _second_ set of Trials? Nobody’d said _anything_ about there being two sets of Trials—though, Kavan seemed surprised.

Geralt shrugged, then said to Lambert, “Varin’s going to be mad at you because I intervened, so I’ll have to go talk to him and let him know it’s not your fault I stepped in. Don’t worry, there’s nothing he can do to me anymore.”

“I can help with that,” Kavan added quietly. “He and I are friends, of a sort.”

Lambert caught some movement over Geralt’s shoulder and saw someone was walking towards them. She was very small, with light brown skin and black hair pulled up into a knot on her head, and a thin face with a strong nose. She had a pretty red jacket on, but the clasps in the front were undone and the sleeves were rolled up, and he could see the wiry muscles in her arms and the gentle curve of her chest. She was wearing a wolf medallion too, and as she got close, Lambert could see the slit-pupil eyes.

“Who’s this, then?” she said.

“Ah,” Kavan said. “Ksenya, this is Lambert. Lambert, do you know Geralt?”

“Yeah,” Lambert said, unable to stop looking at Ksenya for long.

Kavan and Geralt were talking, but Lambert wasn’t paying enough attention. Ksenya had clearly been mutated, and she _had_ the medallion, which Lambert had learned was the sign of a real, on-the-Path Witcher, but he’d never, _ever_ heard of a woman being a Witcher before. All of the stories he remembered were about men. Though, given how wrong a lot of those had gotten it— 

“Why, he’s doing pretty well for only a couple of months of training,” Ksenya said. “You have good form, Lambert.”

Lambert couldn’t help it. “Are you a Witcher?” he blurted in one long breath at Ksenya.

“I am,” she said, and _smiled_ at him. “I’m not the only one who’s a woman, either.” She looked away from him, then, over at Geralt. “I came over to retrieve you, Damius is rather impatient to get started again.”

“Ah,” Geralt said, sounding a little embarrassed, and stood up, looking at Kavan as he did.

“I’ll talk to Varin,” Kavan said. He put his hand gently on Lambert’s shoulder. “I’m sorry for setting you off, kid. We’ll figure it out. It’ll be all right.”

Lambert was too busy thinking about _multiple_ women who were Witchers to react to that. The Bastion boys, as most of the Masters called them, didn’t interact almost at all with most of the Witchers at the keep, and everyone he’d met so far were men—or, at least, he was pretty sure.

“Have we spent enough time on gabbing instead of training?” Varin called with a scowl.

Lambert leapt to his feet. He’d at least managed not to let go of the training sword, and so was spared being told off about _that_.

“Four more sequences, then we’re sparring,” Varin snapped at the boys.

Lambert tried to ignore the way the other boys were looking at him, staring fixedly forward and focusing on getting the called sequences exactly right. He’d show them he wasn’t some stupid weakling during sparring. And he’d have to figure out a way to get over freaking out like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roughly half of this chapter is comprised of Lambert having a panic attack over a training exercise where adults are playing the attacker in a scripted sword sequence and giving the kids light smacks with the training weapons if they don't execute the defense properly. Lambert starts thinking about how his father got extremely upset whenever Lambert tried to fight back against him, flinches instead of executing the defense, and gets a hit with the flat of a sword across his cheekbone, and starts really freaking out. The hit is not a very hard one, and Geralt manages to talk Lambert out of the panic attack. Varin remains an unsympathetic ass the whole time.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the second half!

Jorik was walking back towards the keep to collect a few extra people to help for a tricky part of the wall when Kavan jogged over to him.

“Kavan?” Jorik asked. He liked the man, but they tended not to seek each other out much. Kavan was close to Lukas, but he had several other friends outside of Lukas’ group—including, oddly enough, Varin.

“Jorik. Someone was abusing Lambert?” he asked without preamble. He didn’t sound uncertain.

“I— yes, his father,” Jorik said. “How’d this come up?”

“Training today,” Kavan said. “Was doing the part of an attacker for a parry, and he just— stopped. Got him light on the cheekbone with the flat before I realized there was something wrong.”

“Is he all right?” Jorik asked. He knew Kavan was perfectly capable, and would have been using a light stroke to begin with, but it wasn’t just Lambert’s face that he was worried about.

“He’s fine,” Kavan said. “Geralt was around, recognized what was going on, calmed him down. Varin’s annoyed, but not really at the kid. You know he’s dealt with worse. Geralt also mentioned he thought the problem was not knowing whether to fight back or not when an adult took a swing at him. I’ll let you know if it turns into anything else.”

“Thanks, Kavan,” Jorik said, meaning it but itching to ask for more information. He would have to get the details from Kavan that evening; neither of them had the time for an extended chat just now.

Kavan nodded and headed back off towards the storeroom for training weapons, and Jorik continued on his way to the keep.

Everyone was working as quickly as they could, to get things completed before the storm hit. Jorik couldn’t spare any attention from helping haul stone for the Witchers with masonry skills, so he shoved Kavan’s update on Lambert to the back of his mind. Extra hands at least meant the work went quicker, so it was only early evening when they finished up.

Jorik and Arcturus had a quick wash and decided to leave the soak for a time when the cavern was less crowded. Without anything in particular to do, they’d gravitated to one of the long tables near the huge hearth that looked into the serving-room and sat, soaking in the momentary peace and each other’s company like ground absorbing water during rain. Not too much later, Arcturus gave Jorik a nudge, and he looked up to see Geralt walking towards them purposefully.

“I met your kid,” Geralt said, by way of greeting.

Arcturus grinned and elbowed Jorik. He was still ridiculously pleased about being technically-an-uncle. 

“My kid,” Jorik said to Geralt, not entirely sure where this was going.

“Lambert,” Geralt said. 

Jorik abruptly realized what Geralt meant. “Ah, Kavan mentioned something,” he said. 

“Was his nose broken when you… met him?” Geralt asked uncertainly.

Jorik felt his mouth twist at the reminder. “It was mostly healed,” he said, “but he had two black eyes, a freshly knocked-out tooth, and some pretty bad bruising.”

Geralt and Arcturus both made expressions of dismay.

“Fuck,” Arcturus said, half-glaring at Jorik.

“Yeah,” Jorik said. He shook his head slightly at Arcturus; _not now_. “I didn’t give him good odds of surviving to adulthood.”

“When I was in training,” Geralt said, “one of the boys in my year, Idrik, he’d sometimes get these fits, where something would set him off and he’d go frozen and just— panic to the point that he shut down and couldn’t react anymore.”

Jorik nodded, thinking of how the kid had reacted to, well, several things. “I’ve— seen that,” he said. 

“It started to happen to me,” Geralt went on, shoulders rising in clear discomfort. “After my— after the first round of mutations. Everything would be too— too bright, too loud— I would freeze up because it was too many things and I didn’t know what to do.”

“So you saw it happen to Lambert,” Jorik said, trying to distract Geralt from his own memories. 

“Did Kavan say what my guess was, as to why?” Geralt asked.

Jorik nodded. “And you’re right. I— his reactions with me made it pretty clear, he was used to getting hit a lot and had been taught not to fight back.”

“I think he can still train. I helped him on the Gauntlet too, I don’t think he’s short on guts. I think he’ll do all right. He just… needs a chance,” he said with a shrug. “Needs to get picked on by someone his own size, for a change.”

“He’s got no problem fighting other kids,” Jorik said drily, “which is incidentally part of the reason I didn’t leave him at the Temple. I _did_ try.”

Jorik noted someone _else_ approaching them then, still largely kitted out—swords on back, most of his armor still on. Latecomer, probably. The young Witcher looked familiar; longer dark hair, olive skin, tall and sturdily built. Arcturus nudged his leg with his knee, and that jogged his memory. This was one of Geralt’s yearmates—

“Eskel!” Geralt said, whipping his head around and smiling in delight.

Eskel started laughing. “Little Wolf,” he said, “I wondered if you were coming back this year.”

Geralt stood up and Eskel pulled him into a hug. Jorik elbowed Arcturus, who looked like he was maybe about to say something. He didn’t think the kids even noticed the wounded look Arcturus shot him in return, too happy to be reunited to look across the table as they sat down, as close to each other as Jorik and Arcturus were.

“Jorik, Arcutrus,” Eskel said with a friendly nod.

“Eskel,” Arcturus said warmly. “Good to see you again. How was the Path?”

“Same as ever,” Eskel said with a slight shrug. Jorik had to bite his lip to keep from smiling—Eskel was from Geralt’s cohort, he’d only been on the Path for three years. 

Geralt looked a bit anxious, and as the evening went on Jorik figured he understood why. He couldn’t blame him, either. It was always hard to spend time away from the people you loved. Everyone politely pretended the two weren’t sneaking looks at each other all though dinner and a bit of chatting and drinking, and nobody laughed when Eskel announced his plans to retire early and Geralt immediately stood and said, “Let me help you unpack, I wanna catch up.”

Eskel laughed at that, and said, “Sure.” 

Jorik hid a smile as the two boys both bid everyone at the table good night. 

“Okay,” Arcturus said quietly as they left, his own smile fading. “You need to tell me more about this kid of yours.”

Jorik sighed. “Yeah. Let’s head up.”

* * *

Lambert had torn himself away from the huge eating-hall with serious reluctance. He’d been trying to look for Ksenya again, just to _see_ her, maybe to see how people reacted to her in a crowd, or when people were drinking. Witchers drank a _lot_ , Lambert had noticed, which made him feel a little— weird. He was pretty sure some of them had gotten drunk, some nights, but he’d never even seen them start yelling like his dad did, much less start hitting anybody. There’d been a few scuffles, sure, but those had always ended with laughter and hugs or claps on the back, and almost no bruises. Hell, he’d only seen one bloody nose.

Or at least, he’d only seen that _so far_. Furthermore, it had mostly all been in public, where other Witchers were around. But he hadn’t seen Ksenya in the hall before Tomas had sent them off to their limited free time and then bed. He _had_ seen Geralt, though—the white hair and his height made him hard to miss. He’d been sitting at a table with several other Witchers, including Jorik, and he’d kept looking at the one he was sitting next to, who had dark medium-length hair and who’d been almost as tall and definitely broader than Geralt, and who was _definitely_ drinking.

He really wanted to—well, to keep watching, to see if Ksenya came in or if Geralt left without the dark-haired Witcher, but four months was more than enough time to realize he _couldn’t_ be sneaky enough to hide from a Witcher who was paying attention, and Witchers were still entering and leaving the hall.

Lambert had started his nightly run through the keep instead. There were certain places trainees _absolutely_ weren’t allowed, or weren’t allowed without supervision, but most of those were in the north tower and wing, and there were more than enough stairs and long hallways to tire himself out on in the south one anyways. He alternated a bit; he ran up each flight and down the hallways, pausing at the ends to go through stances or to do push-ups or sit-ups or squats or whatever. 

Lambert was on the fourth floor landing when he heard a noise. He might have ignored it—it wasn’t as if other people didn’t live here—but he saw a flash of white illuminated by moonlight coming in through a window and realized it was _Geralt_. Geralt, backed into a window niche by the Witcher he’d been next to and looking at during supper. The dark-haired Witcher wasn’t punching him— _yet_ —but he definitely had him pinned down, arms around his ribs. Lambert took two steps forward before actually thinking about it, then thought about it and kept walking over. He could maybe at least distract the Witcher long enough for Geralt to do something, at least.

When he was maybe a couple meters away, he saw Geralt grab the other Witcher—but not his hair, or his jacket, or anywhere that would be helpful in trying to pry someone off. He stopped in blank confusion, watching the pale hand squeeze the dark-haired Witcher’s butt.

Of course, that was the moment the dark-haired Witcher looked over his shoulder at Lambert. “Beat it, kid,” he growled. His voice was _deep_ , deeper even than Geralt’s was.

Lambert felt like there were snakes wriggling around in his gut, but he didn’t move, trying to see Geralt’s face. He almost jumped when Geralt—it had to be Geralt, he could see the other Witcher’s face— _laughed_ , and pulled the dark-haired Witcher closer to him again. Lambert stared into the dark corner, trying to figure out what the _fuck_ was going on. He took a tiny step to the side, so to try and see the Witcher’s faces, and saw that they had their mouths pressed together. 

_…was that **kissing?**_

Lambert took half a step forward, trying to get a better view, and the dark-haired Witcher stepped back and away from Geralt again. 

“I really mean it,” he said, “you gotta scram, kid.”

Geralt sighed. “Go on, kid,” he said, sounding—amused, maybe.

Whatever was happening, Geralt at least seemed to— _want_ it to be happening. And Lambert didn’t want to test the patience of either Witcher right now. He turned and headed back for the stairs. He could skip the fourth floor for tonight.

Lambert wasn’t _stupid_. He knew what sex was—it wasn’t like he wouldn’t know, when his whole family had slept in the same space. And he’d _thought_ he knew what kissing was. His mom had kissed him, on the cheek or nose or head, and told him it was something you gave people you loved. His dad had never kissed him or Mom, which had pretty thoroughly confirmed that, but what Geralt and the other Witcher had been doing looked basically nothing like the kisses his mom had given him. But it had been— it had maybe looked like it was something similar, maybe something like the way Aunt Irina had kissed Uncle Darius on the mouth once, when they hadn’t known Lambert was there. And he really wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d seen—Geralt, laughing and pulling the other Witcher back in, the way they’d been pressed close to each other—and the squirming feeling in his stomach was back, and his face felt hot on top of that.

He did extra exercises in each hallway, trying to focus on them instead of Geralt and kissing, but it only sort of worked. He had too many questions he wanted to ask, but he didn’t have anyone he _could_ ask. He didn’t trust the other boys to know any more than he did. Geralt had been—nice, but Lambert didn’t know him, really, certainly not well enough to know how he might react to a kid trying to talk to him. The other Witchers were right out, for the same reason—

 _Jorik never seemed to mind me asking questions_. 

The thought had come out of _nowhere_. It wasn’t even a good idea—Jorik had delivered him to Kaer Morhen, and he was waiting to hear if he’d have to do something else with Lambert at the end of the winter. Whatever he’d done during the journey here, he didn’t _have_ to look after Lambert anymore. 

_He didn’t have to answer me while we were traveling, either._

Lambert growled in frustration. He didn’t know why Jorik had acted the way he had, and Lambert wasn’t going to go find him to ask, because that would be _really stupid_. 

Several of the boys were playing cards when he got back to their room, chattering eagerly about the first snow. They were all used to Lambert coming and going at odd times, and they mostly didn’t look up or stop their conversation.

“—snowball fights!” Moritz was saying.

“Maybe they’ll build snow-monsters again,” Jonah added.

That prompted an excited rendition of all the various creatures the Witchers and older trainees had sculpted out of snow in winters past, everyone talking over each other at once. It did sound kind of interesting, Lambert had to admit. Haken was describing a huge chelonodrake from five winters ago over Sven talking about an ice troll when Tomas poked his head in.

“Lights out,” he said, and waited for everyone to scramble into bed before he snuffed all the candles and lamps with Igni. The large hearthfire was the only source of illumination left, and it gave everything a yellow-orange cast.

Nobody was quite ready to stop talking yet, so the conversation carried on in whispers. As long as they kept things quiet enough, Tomas didn’t stop them. Lambert, taking advantage of the surrounding chatter, carefully pulled Zdena out of their hiding place.

“A lot of things happened today, Zdena,” he said. “More than usual, even. I didn’t know there were Witchers who were women, but I _met_ one, named Ksenya…”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check the end notes for more information on the contents of this chapter; namely a fairly in-depth discussion regarding the gender of several of the characters.

The next day they were on afternoon kitchen duty. Some of the other kids liked to complain about kitchen work, especially when they were there in the mornings, but the kitchens were warm and Lambert was _familiar_ with the chores, even if these were on a much, much larger scale. Tending fires was the purview of the actual cooks, but hauling and peeling and kneading and actually cooking was always part of the routine—and the cooks were always giving them extras or scraps to eat, which solidified kitchen duty as one of Lambert’s favorites. 

“Right,” Urdo, one of the regular cooks, said, “you know the routine. Hauling wood until midday, dishes, then supper preparation after.”

Lambert chorused agreement with the rest of the boys and set himself to carrying in stacks of firewood as large as he could manage not to drop, as quickly as he could trot. It wasn’t quite the same as Varin’s lessons, but it tended to be good strength training all the same. 

He’d taken in a reasonable stack of the birch from the woodshed when Urdo called a quick pause for lunch; bread, sausage, and beets, with preserves from the huge storage jars that lined the serving room. Lambert took as much of the food as he thought he could get away with, and added pickled nuts from one of the jars on the end. Most of the other boys went for fruit, to spread on the bread, but Nazgil gave him a nod as he collected radishes and fish.

Lambert always told himself he’d try a second preserve, but he could never make himself take more than one, even when the others did. Today he lingered for a moment by the fruit, breathing in the smell of it.

“Stop dithering and have some, child,” a voice said, and Lambert jumped in surprise. “Do you like bilberries?”

Lambert turned, wide-eyed, to see Petr, the head of the kitchens, standing next to him. He started to nod, remembered that Petr was blind, and said “Uh, yes,” out loud.

“Good,” the Witcher said, and ladled out a huge spoonful into a bowl he was holding, which he then presented to Lambert. Lambert took it, cautiously, and Petr gave him a gentle nudge towards the others.

Lambert skittered over to the rest of the boys before anyone could take the bilberries. He tasted them as he sat. There was something else in them, some kind of spice, and Lambert had to take a couple of moments to just savor a mouthful. He added the berries to his bread and started eating quickly; they would need to get back to work soon. He finished just as Urdo came over and sent them to start the washing-up. There wasn’t much of it to do at midday, although they were busy until some time after the meal ended, washing the dishes used for it as they were delivered in stages.

Tellen, who mostly oversaw vegetables, collected them. “We need at least one of you to run ashes.”

“I’ll do it,” Lambert said immediately. 

Hauling was harder work than peeling or scrubbing or chopping, but he wanted that. Not to mention the other kids tended to chat while they were working, and he’d had enough of listening to them while scrubbing. Tellen gave him a look, but nodded, and Lambert ran off to collect the wheelbarrow.

The sun was starting to descend and Lambert, running back from his latest load to the dye and soap sheds, was contemplating stopping for a minute to get another drink of water when Geralt and Ksenya walked out the side door and headed over to him. He stopped the wheelbarrow and wiped his forehead so sweat wouldn’t drip into his eyes

“What do you want,” he asked, wary, looking at each of them in turn. He’d wanted to see them again, but he didn’t think there was anything good in them seeking him out.

Ksenya was _right there_ , though, just standing there and eating a piece of bread. Lambert tried not to stare, tried to read why she and Geralt might be there, but he couldn’t stop just _looking_ at her. She turned her head to look at Geralt, though, and Lambert glanced at him.

“We wanted to make sure you knew you’re not in trouble,” Geralt said. “We talked to Varin and I think he understood.”

“So he’s not gonna…” Lambert trailed off. He wasn’t sure what Varin might not do, actually.

“He agreed with me that there’s not really a reason to set you off on purpose,” Geralt said. “It’s not helpful and isn’t going to help you get through it. And there’s not really much call, in training, to do the kind of stuff that would set you off. So it’s not like you’re never going to have to deal with that again, but he’s not gonna make you, on purpose.”

Lambert had to think about that for a second, but the idea of _not_ _having_ to go through that awful few minutes again was a good one. It really didn’t seem like enough of a reason for both of them to come talk to him, though, and he couldn’t help looking at Ksenya again as he raised a shoulder and said, “Okay.”

“Did you have any questions?” Ksenya asked, quietly. 

“Oh, yeah,” Geralt said. “If you want any pointers on what to do if you do get set off, or anything?”

Lambert shrugged again, aware that he really needed to get back to work. Geralt looked thoughtful for a moment, then dropped into a crouch. Lambert was suddenly aware that it put him right at Lambert’s height, slit-pupil eyes right in front of his face. 

“Take a break for a second,” Geralt suggested. “Sit and talk to us. We’ll help you shovel the next load, it won’t slow you down.” 

Geralt fished around in his things a bit and pulled out—another piece of bread, and held it out to Lambert. Well, he wasn’t about to turn down free food.

“Wipe your hands first,” Geralt said as he reached out for it.

Lambert tried not to roll his eyes—it wasn’t like a bit of ash would hurt him any—but wiped his hands off on the backs of his breeches, which were mostly clean. Ksenya laughed and handed him a square of cloth, which he used to clean off the remaining smears, and Geralt finally gave him the chunk of bread. Lambert sat down and started eating; it had been a long while since midday.

“You know all the other kids are sneaking carrots in there,” Ksenya said, crouching next to Geralt. “It’s only fair you should get a snack too.” 

Geralt pulled out a little bag and offered some of the contents to Ksenya. Almonds, it looked like, which Lambert had only gotten to try once so far. They’d tasted good, though. Geralt gave Lambert a handful, too, and he sat and ate and looked at the two Witchers, wondering what this was about.

“It’s all right if you don’t have any questions,” Ksenya said. “But I think I know some things you want to know about, don’t I.”

Lambert looked at Ksenya immediately. She was smiling. 

“So,” she said, “you know that they only train boys to be Witchers.”

Lambert nodded slowly. At the very least, he’d never heard of women Witchers before.

“It didn’t used to be like that,” Geralt added.

“You don’t remember that,” Ksenya said, and Geralt inclined his head slightly. “I don’t remember that. It was a long time ago, that they changed it.”

“It’s only because too many girls died in the Trials,” Geralt said.

“Too many _boys_ die in the Trials,” Ksenya said sharply, and Geralt inclined his head again. “You know that better than anyone, don’t you?”

Lambert frowned a little at that one, wondering if she meant what Geralt had said to Kavan, about a second set of Trials. He was about to ask when Geralt huffed a breath and growled, “Let’s not talk about my Trials.” Lambert let his mouth shut, but it seemed like Geralt had noticed.

“They put me through a second time,” Geralt explained. “A few of us, who’d done well in the previous year, or two, they repeated the Trials a second time.”

“What happened?” Lambert whispered, staring at Geralt’s face, eyes wide. He remembered Jorik, saying that they were the most pain he’d _ever_ been in, and there were Witchers who had been through that _twice?_

“Everyone died but me,” Geralt said, a little awkwardly, “and I spent the next two years struggling to stay alive. But I survived, so, and here I am, so— and it worked, I can—” he waved a hand. “See more stuff, do some things faster, take more potions. But.” he sighed. “Everyone else died.”

“You almost died?” Lambert asked, more than a little horrified. There’d been mention of kids dying because of the mutations, after the immediate danger of the Trials was over, but no one had ever explained how, precisely, that happened.

“I couldn’t eat,” Geralt said, gaze sliding away from Lambert, “hardly at all, and— other stuff. There’s a reason everyone keeps being amazed at how tall I am, because I was pretty much half this size up until the last year of my training, when suddenly my mutations settled enough and I started growing.”

Lambert nodded. He hadn’t heard anyone talking about it, but— “They won’t make _me_ go through the Trials twice, though, will they?”

“No,” Geralt said, sounding certain. “It’s not worth it.”

“Is it not?” Ksenya asked, and Lambert glared at her before he could stop himself. If the Witchers thought that almost every one of the kids who’d been through the Trials twice dying was _worth_ it—

“ _I_ don’t think so,” Geralt said. “I’m— it worked for me, sure, but it’s not worth the boys it killed, is it? I’m just a Witcher, it’s not like it gave me enough of an edge to be decisive.” He made an abrupt little gesture. “I want to hear more about where you were going with this. If they only train boys, then you had to be a boy during training.”

“Yes,” Ksenya said, clearly refocusing. She winked at Lambert. “I _wasn’t_ a boy, understand, but I had to pretend to be one.” 

_That_ knocked Lambert’s upset right out of his head for a moment. 

“I looked like one, I had mostly all the parts like one, I could act like one, I seemed to be one, but I knew I wasn’t one— but I knew if I told them I wasn’t one, they wouldn’t keep training me. And I wanted them to train me. Because if I made it through the Trials, then I’d be able to be my real self, and I’d be able to do what I wanted.”

“This wasn’t the only way you could be—” Geralt said, haltingly, “—yourself, though, was it? I mean, there could’ve been other choices. I mean the— you don’t have to be mutated for mages to know how to— make your body be— what it’s supposed to.”

Lambert blinked. He’d had no _idea_ that was something mages could do.

“Ah,” Ksenya said, “I see what you mean. No, you’re right, if I’d just wanted to be a woman, mages can do that without any other mutations— it’s actually easier, if you’re just a standard human, for them to do that. But my point, Geralt, is that I wanted to be a _Witcher_. I always wanted that. I wanted to fight monsters and help people. If I went somewhere else and let them make me more obviously a girl, I wouldn’t be able to be a Witcher.”

“Oh,” Geralt said. Lambert had to bite his tongue to keep from derailing the conversation. He wanted to know more about what made someone want to be a Witcher, but he wanted to listen to all of what Ksenya had to say, about _not being a boy_.

“You were always a boy,” Ksenya said to Geralt, maybe a little unsure. “And you’re a man now.”

Geralt made a face of near-disgust, which surprised Lambert. “I’m not a man, I’m a Witcher,” he said. “It’s not the same thing. I _was_ a boy, sure, but I’m not a man.”

“What’s the difference?” she asked. Lambert couldn’t help leaning forward a little; he _wanted_ to hear, wanted to know what someone else was thinking, where they didn’t really object to being talked about like a man but weren't really one.

Geralt sighed and glanced at Lambert. “I don’t know if I’m entirely comfortable discussing this,” he said. 

“You can’t make babies,” Ksenya said, knowingly.

“Well,” Geralt said with another sigh, “I mean, no, I can’t, but there’s. Other stuff. I don’t know what to call it. But I’m not human, so I’m not a man.”

“Interesting distinction,” Ksenya said, looking at Lambert. “For the record, he’s right, Witchers can’t make or carry babies, at all. They just— none of that can make it through the mutations, it’s all wiped out. They’ll teach you more once you’re through the Trials.”

Lambert didn’t particularly care about being able to have children or not, but there was a much more important assumption in what she said that he wasn’t about to let go. “ _If_ I make it,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

“If,” she conceded. “So, Lambert, are you a boy?”

Lambert paused for a moment, glanced at Geralt. He didn’t _like_ being called ‘boy’, by basically anyone who had ever used it to refer to him, but— “Yes,” he said, knowing he didn’t sound confident at all.

“Because they only train boys,” she said, smiling again and pointing at him.

“Exactly,” Lambert said, feeling a little pleased that he’d played along correctly.

“After the Trials, though,” Geralt said, “you can be what you want.”

“Not a man,” Lambert said, testing the way it sounded, because he— maybe he _wasn’t_.

“No,” Geralt said.

“Not a woman though,” he added, because he was pretty sure he wasn’t a girl, even though he _did_ wonder what it would be like, to wear skirts or dresses, or face paint or jewelry or to have his hair long and braided.

“Well,” Ksenya said, tilting her head slightly, “no, by that logic.”

Lambert suddenly understood she thought he meant by Geralt’s standards, that a Witcher wasn’t human either. “I’m not— even if they _did_ train girls I’m not a girl either, I don’t think,” he said, trying to get it all said at once. “I’m not— I don’t know if I’m either.”

“Oh,” Geralt said, sounding like he’d just understood something. “Like Nolla. They’re not a he _or_ a she, we just call ‘em they. Should’ve had _them_ come along for this conversation, they’d probably have figured out what was going on sooner.”

“They’re not back this winter,” Ksenya said to Geralt, “but I _did_ think of that, love. You’re fine.”

Lambert could feel his face heating up. “I don’t— I’m okay being a _he_ ,” he said. He hadn’t realized they’d be so— that they’d just _accept_ it. He hadn’t known that there could be a reason for Zdena being just plain Zdena, for the way he hated the way his dad said ‘boy’, like it meant he was always failing to measure up to some kind of standard. “I— I have a— a _friend_ who— I have a friend who’s a _they_ but I’m okay as a _he_ , I don’t mind.”

Geralt and Ksenya both nodded, looking very serious. 

“Well,” Geralt said, “if you change your mind about that, let us know.”

“And if anyone gives you any trouble about it,” Ksenya added.

Geralt scowled suddenly, then said, “Kid, if anyone gives you shit, it’s not like you can really come to me about it. Or us.”

Lambert felt his stomach sink.

“We’re not here most of the year,” Ksenya said thoughtfully.

“No,” Geralt said, “and it’s not our business. We’re grown and the Bastion boys aren’t our concern.”

Lambert forced himself not to grimace. _Of course._ But Geralt wasn’t done talking.

“You haven’t been here long, you don’t know, but— Petr, in the kitchen, he will always listen to you. You can go to him. And Tulek. You don’t know him, he works with the little kids, but— he has the eyepatch and the crutch, and you— you don’t even have to tell him everything, he’ll understand.”

“He will,” Ksenya said. “He’s the only person I ever told I was really a girl. He helped me decide what to do.”

Lambert squashed the bubbling anger and disappointment. Of _course_ they couldn’t really help. He realized they maybe thought they were, but he didn’t know Tulek _at all_ , and although Petr gave him food, Lambert was pretty sure the head cook wasn’t the kind of person to pick sides, if it came down to it.

Geralt took a sharp breath and said, “Jorik,” on the exhale. “It’s not— since he brought you in it’s not weird if he involves himself. You can go to him. You don’t even have to tell him anything. But— I mean, at least while he’s here.”

“Jorik’s a good guy,” Ksenya said.

“He was always very kind to me,” Geralt said. “He— thinks things through, a lot. And he knows— he’s older, he knows more of how things work than me. Even if you don’t want to talk to him much he can tell you who can help you.”

Lambert felt pretty damn skeptical. They knew Jorik had brought him to Kaer Morhen, clearly, but he figured they were severely overestimating how much the Witcher cared, especially after Lambert had basically told him to fuck off. At the same time, the _idea_ of it—

“ _If_ you _need_ help,” Ksenya added.

“Right,” Geralt said. “Of course. You’re not alone here, kid, that’s all. You’ll have to face the Trials alone but that’s the only thing nobody can help you with.”

“Oh, is _that_ all,” Lambert said, trying to sound sarcastic instead of cross. Geralt laughed, so he thought he might have managed it. 

“That’s all,” Geralt said, his mouth twisted slightly. “Hey, let’s get these ashes shoveled before Petr comes out and scolds us for slacking, hey?”

The shoveling went _much_ faster with two adult Witchers there, and they finished in basically no time at all. They sent Lambert back inside to clean up, which he took care of with minimal reluctance. The Bastion boys still had supper to help with, after all, and although Lambert didn’t mind eating a little ash, some of the others probably would.

“Ah, good,” Petr said as Lambert turned the tap off and dried his hands. “Hauling is hard work for a child. Here.”

Lambert stared as Petr handed him a whole handpie. The pasty was cooked to a perfect golden-brown and it was still very warm, and Lambert wrapped his cold hands around it, not sure what to say.

“Eat quickly,” Petr said. “There’s still much to do.”

Lambert decided not to delay until he lost his chance, and dug in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains some discussion of a trans character, Ksenya, purposely being closeted and misgendering herself during her training because the Wolf School was not allowing female trainees, and she didn't want to take the chance that she wouldn't be allowed to try to become a Witcher if she was open about who she was before the Trials. She also encourages Lambert to claim that he is a boy for the same reason (nobody here has the vocabulary available to us irl, but we're portraying Lambert as he/him nonbinary). Geralt is sure that he's a Witcher, not a human, and objects to being called a 'man' with that assumption—it's not and is not intended to be part of his self-esteem issues, it's just his own concept of his identity (please do go read Bomberqueen17's version of this chapter for his thoughts on this). Geralt also notes that he knows another adult Witcher who uses they/them pronouns. Furthermore, the Wolf School does not, as a whole, have any issues with Witchers who do not conform to a gender binary. Everyone is working to be understanding and kind within the limits of their in-character knowledge and experience, but if you notice anything that seems wrong or that is upsetting, _please_ let us know!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! No corresponding update from Bomberqueen17 today, she’s busy on a Keira/Lambert/Aiden series!
> 
> Her next update on Learning Experiences may not have any dialogue overlap with one of my chapters either, depending on how it turns out :)
> 
> Finally, this particular chapter is mostly taking place during the same day as the previous one.
> 
> \---
> 
> Okay so I was telling Bomberqueen17 about the backstory I was imagining for Jorik here and she misinterpreted the sentence and thought the fiend that killed his family had been hiding in the root cellar. So, in addition to Sewer Clog Fiend, as seen in the notes for [chapter 9 of The Law of Surprise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24355231/chapters/60095140), we now have Unexpected Root Cellar Fiend. How did he get in there? Nobody knows.
> 
> (her contribution: “Fiends In Low Places: A Remix of Garth Brooks”)
> 
> Also, _**see the end notes for some warnings. That new ‘gross dead animal nonsense’ tag is for real.**_

Arcturus had spent quite a bit of time cursing Lambert’s father the previous night.

“You said the man was a drunken ass, but, _Jorik_ —”

“I _know_ ,” Jorik had said. “He was about to hit Lambert for not wanting to walk over to an armed Witcher and I— wanted to kill him. I maybe _should_ have killed him, whether or not I’d taken Lambert with me.”

“You—” Arcturus had said, looking shocked. Well, it wasn’t like Jorik didn’t prefer to _not_ kill humans, whenever possible.

“The kid’s mother, Art,” Jorik had said, softly.

“Fuck,” Arcturus had replied, in sudden understanding.

“I don’t doubt there’s help for her in the village, if she can leave him, but still—”

“Hey,” Arcturus had said, and pulled Jorik into an embrace, warm and smelling of their dinner and of ale and of lightly-scented soap from their earlier bath. “You did what you did. If you really think he’d be better off dead you can go take care of it in spring.”

Jorik had sighed against Arcturus’ wool-clad shoulder. “Stay tonight?”

“Of course.”

Jorik woke the next morning warm and relaxed, curled around Arcturus, hearing his Witcher-slow heartbeat. Home. Months yet until they needed to go back on the Path. Jorik let his thumb rub over one of the large scars running diagonally across Arcturus’ clavicle, peeking out of his unlanced shirt. The scars themselves were souvenirs from a striga that had devastated a tiny town in Velhad, and every time Jorik saw them he couldn’t help feeling a little weak with relief that Arcturus had lived through the contract.

Neither of them tended to sleep in, unless they were purposely trying, so Arcturus blinked awake shortly after. 

“Morning,” Jorik murmured, looking at him with hooded eyes.

“Morning,” Arcturus said back, and pulled Jorik in for a kiss.

When they broke apart, Arcturus gave him a little smile. “Think they’re serving breakfast yet?”

Jorik almost growled. “Even if they _are_ , I don’t give a fuck about being late.”

Arcturus didn’t stop laughing even when Jorik kissed him again.

* * *

“I found the wyvern’s nest,” Moldnar said when they got down. “I spoke to Damius about it and he said I could pull a few people to go take it today. Jorik, I know you said you’d help with preserving, but would you be willing to help hunt? The major repairs are largely completed, I don’t think they need as many people today.”

Moldnar wasn’t wrong about the masonry, and Jorik had already been contemplating switching tasks after the huge pull to get things finished off yesterday. Jorik liked being in the same work group as Arcturus, but he didn’t have the other man’s skill, and he wasn’t needed nearly as badly. He could be far more useful doing something else, and once fine masonry was done, he and Arcturus could work together again.

“Are we going to be able to get back before the storm blows in?” Jorik asked, taking a mouthful of porridge studded with preserved berries. 

“They were estimating tomorrow for the storm, last I heard,” Lukas said.

“And it’s not too deep in the mountains; it’s in that little valley on the east shore, halfway up the lake?” Moldnar said.

Jorik hummed, continuing to eat, quicker than he usually did. “I know the spot. Shouldn’t take us too long, assuming the wyvern is there when we are.”

“It took a deer yesterday,” Moldnar said. “It should be there.”

“And if it’s not, we can probably take something on the way back in any case,” Jorik said, finishing off the bowl. “Let me get my armor and weapons.”

“Ditching me to go monster hunting,” Arcturus said with a smile. “Nice to see where I land on the list of priorities.”

“Not at all,” Jorik said. “I’m ditching masonry work to go monster hunting. Leaving you behind just happens to be a bonus.”

Arcturus burst into laughter and slugged Jorik in the arm, and Jorik grinned at him and jogged back up to his room to throw on all his armor and other monster hunting accoutrements. Moldnar and Lukas were waiting for him near the doors out of the great hall, similarly decked out.

“I thought we would take a boat most of the way,” Moldnar said. “Save our horses the trouble of trying to pick around the shore.”

“Fair enough,” Jorik said, rolling his shoulders. “Rowing won’t be a bad warm-up. Might need two boats, though.”

Lukas grinned and flexed. He wasn’t the most muscular of the Wolves, but he definitely kept in tone with enthusiasm instead of the more usual pragmatism.

“I see you’re volunteering to take one on your own,” Jorik said wryly, and Lukas laughed outright.

“As long as I get less field-dressed wyvern to haul back!” he said cheerily.

“Only on the walk,” Moldnar said. “We’re putting two-thirds of the carcass in your boat to keep from overloading anything.”

They all snickered amiably as they left the gates at a lope. It only took about thirty minutes to reach the lakeside at their pace. Dhasen only just didn’t roll his eyes at them, but he lent them two boats readily enough.

“If you wreck them, you’re going to spend the winter learning how to make new ones,” was his observation as they piled in and made sure oars were in the locks.

Moldnar gave a half-bow. “An excellent opportunity,” he said, with typical sincerity. Lukas made a tiny noise in his throat that could possibly be construed as non-agreement, but everyone ignored it.

They headed out, thoroughly cautioned. Rowing against the wind pouring through the lake valley took a bit longer than their mid-speed run, but it was still morning, if late, when they pulled over to the east bank and tied the boats down thoroughly.

“Bit of a hike up,” Jorik said, stretching a bit and starting for the steep valley.

“Just a bit,” Lukas said, following behind after making sure the stakes were secure on his boat.

“Still not nearly as bad as the Killer,” Moldnar said, lips quirking.

“Did you actually know anyone who died on it?” Lukas asked him. “I know a couple boys in my group broke bones, and I don’t remember anyone from Jorik’s cohort dying…”

Moldnar blinked, clearly a little surprised. “You know, I don’t think I do know of anyone who died on it. Surely it has happened before, but—”

“Not as often as the kids make it out to be?” Jorik said.

“By the time you’re on the truly dangerous sections alone, the idea of possible mortality is usually well ground-in,” Moldnar said.

“Oh!” Lukas said. “Jorik, Kavan mentioned your kid did well on it yesterday. He was on one of the aid spots, said Lambert was fifth and had a pretty good lead over everyone behind him. Apparently he’s made visible improvements even since Kavan got here.”

“If he stays— if he lives, he sounds like he’ll do well,” Moldnar said.

“I—” Jorik was torn. He honestly didn’t _know_ if he wanted Lambert to undergo the Trials or not. He’d only been getting more confirmation that the kid was _good_ at this, but that was no kind of guarantee that he would live through having his body torn apart and put back together.

Moldnar gave Jorik’s shoulder a squeeze. “It’s a difficult thing,” he said. “I, at least, was not willing to live with people like those who had killed my family. The Witchers seemed a far kinder option, in their own way.”

“I was pretty done with humans too,” Lukas added. “I was young, but not too young to realize how many people were prepared to turn a blind eye to a slaver. And if my own parents were willing—” he shrugged. “I didn’t want to end up being sold again.”

Jorik didn’t remember too much of his early childhood, but he did remember how terrified he’d been, hiding in the root cellar with his cousins for over a week, hearing the fiend outside bellowing and trying to dig them out, watching it tear great gouges into the mortared stone lining the walls. There had been enough food and drink for all six of them, but living in the dark and in constant fear had taken a toll. The worst part had been when the fiend had managed to get enough of its head into the space to try to hypnotize them—it had caught Taimi and Roj, and Jorik, despite being the second-youngest there, had seized one of the splintered beams from the wrecked shelves near the door and stabbed at the third eye, trying to keep it from killing more of his family— 

The Witcher had showed up maybe a day after that. He’d been impressed with Jorik; he'd helped him get the splinters out of his hands, had found homes for Jorik’s cousins, and had asked Jorik if he wanted to come with him. Jorik had been equally impressed, both with the care and the way the fiend’s corpse had been shredded.

“And to think I just wanted to help people,” Jorik said, with a bit of a twist to his mouth. 

“Ah, well, it eventually comes down to that,” Moldnar said. 

“It’s not as if any of us are doing this for the money,” Lukas said with a laugh.

Conversation trailed off as they worked their way further into the valley. Even with three Witchers, things could still go sideways, and the better prepared they were for the upcoming fight, the less the chance of any of them getting hurt. Of course, with three of them, they weren’t taking potions to prepare for the fight, which was reckless enough. Jorik had brought some, and probably so had Lukas and Moldnar—to be caught without would have been plain stupid—but they were all capable of handling a wyvern independently, and with all of them here it was better not to take them until or unless they were needed.

They spread out quietly as the valley opened up, drawing their blades and getting into low stances. Moldnar knew this hunt best, so he took point, advancing through the brown grass with only a soft shushing noise. Lukas and Jorik followed in his wake on either side, about six meters away. They were about halfway across the open space when a flash of red caught Jorik’s eye. He glanced over to Lukas and then at Moldnar, and a quick bit of hand signaling confirmed their approach. 

Lukas and Jorik split off to go wide and high around the edge of the valley, to see if they could circle around to flank the wyvern, and to keep an eye out for any other trouble. Moldnar let them get a head start then continued forward, working to hide his frontal approach. Jorik scanned the valley as he moved in, keeping an eye out for any other monsters. All he saw, though, was the wyvern curled up in a rough-looking nest of branches and grass. Sleeping off the deer, most likely.

They managed to get close enough for an ambush after over about a half-hour of stalking, and didn't waste the opportunity. The wyvern was dead almost before it woke.

“At least it was definitely a wyvern,” Lukas said while they were all cleaning their swords after, grinning at Jorik.

“Oh, shut the hell up, Lukas,” Jorik said, half-laughing. “That was over two decades ago.”

“Rest assured we will be reminding you of it for at _least_ another three,” Moldnar said, finishing up and rising to wrestle the wyvern over and start the gutting process.

“Want me to start a fire for midday?” Jorik asked while Moldnar started cutting.

“Looks like the storm might be rolling in within the next few hours,” Lukas commented, looking at the sky. “I don’t know if we have time, much as I’d like to.”

“Ah, damn,” Jorik said, glancing at the dark clouds gathering to the north. “Well, what’s the use of being mutants if we can’t eat raw meat every so often?”

“None, obviously,” Lukas said, laughing and bracing part of the wyvern. “Get over here and help.”

Jorik got, and he and Lukas steadied the carcass while Moldnar made his second cut in a straight line up from the groin and through the sternum.

“Damned… flight muscles,” Moldnar said, sawing with no small amount of determination. “Ha!”

“Got it?” Jorik asked.

“Eventually,” Moldnar said, carefully wiping his forehead and only just avoiding smearing blood all over it. “Heart and liver?”

“Of course,” Lukas said, and he and Jorik held on as Moldnar pulled the viscera free.

“Then catch,” Moldnar said, and tossed the heart gently in Lukas’ direction. “Jorik, liver.”

“Oh, give _me_ the one you need to check for flukes,” Jorik said, amused, as he caught the huge dark liver in both hands. He balanced it carefully and pulled out his own cleaning knife, to start slicing it into pieces.

“Here, have some,” Lukas said, holding out a slice of the heart, blood dripping down his wrists.

Jorik leaned over and took the slice in his teeth, chewing and enjoying the blood-rich muscle as he carved a strip off the liver and gave it a look for parasites. It wasn’t as though liver flukes weren’t edible, but you definitely didn’t want to accidentally put a live one in your mouth. They’d all gotten rid of their gag reflexes, but that didn’t mean you wouldn’t reflexively spit out a mouthful if something was still moving in it.

“I _have_ a cloth,” Moldnar said, having left the other organs in a pile and wrestled the carcass over onto its front to drain and cool.

“Yeah, but it’s midday, why wait,” Lukas said, and took the piece of liver from Jorik.

“Speak for yourself, this is hard to balance in one hand, and I don’t think even you want dirt in your food,” Jorik said.

“Fair ‘nuff,” Lukas said with his mouth full. 

Moldnar rolled his eyes and spread the cloth out, and the three of them sat down and shared out the rest of the heart and liver. Even with three of them, there was enough meat for all of them. And, in fairness, even though Witchers _could_ eat far more than they had, if they did so in one sitting it tended to leave them a bit sluggish.

Once they were done, Lukas and Jorik tossed for thirding the carcass. Joirk lost, and sighed as he got up. 

“One of you gets to sharpen knives,” he said as he straddled the creature to start cutting.

Witchers tended to cut up corpses differently than the average person. In the end, Jorik had the hindquarters and tail in one piece, head and neck in another, and the ribcage and what remained of the shoulders after removing the wings in a third. He’d also dulled their knives twice, but that wasn’t unexpected.

“Ready to burn the extras?” Jorik said, looking at the viscera and discarded bits while rolling his shoulders. Lukas had cleared space for a fire while Jorik and Moldnar had been working on cutting.

“Let’s get out of here before it starts snowing,” Lukas said in agreement.

The three of them incinerated the discards and each took a third to drag back to the boats.

“Cutting it a bit close,” Dhasen said when they pulled the boats up to the dock.

“They were predicting tomorrow,” Lukas said.

Dhasen snorted and half-smiled. “You think a mage prediction is solid in the winter? You must be fools. But you’re lucky fools; the hunting party isn’t too far out, they should be able to help you get that back.”

“Thank you, Dhasen,” Moldnar and Jorik said.

“Don’t thank me, thank whoever helps you lug that up to storage,” Dhasen said as they carefully lifted the wyvern carcass pieces onto the dock.

Jorik glanced at the lake, wondering if it would be worth it to rinse his hands and arms now. He decided against it as he heard someone from the hunting party call out to them; he’d be moving again soon anyway, and that added to the mostly-dried state of the blood and other gunk on his hands and the freezing cold water, it just wasn’t worth it.

The wind picked up again as they were about halfway to the keep.

“Bah, I’m getting old,” Yves, who was helping Jorik with the head and neck, said. “That wind’s cutting right through me.”

“Might just be time to wear a few more layers,” Jorik said, though he was shivering too.

“Like I said,” Yves said, “getting old.”

Jorik couldn’t help laughing, a bit, though he made a mental note to see if he could trade to get a couple of good sweaters that could be worn under armor. They’d be worth—well, not their weight in gold, precisely, but more than worth a fair number of unpleasant chores, though he didn’t mind that much for what use he could get from them. Kaer Morhen was like that. Nothing that—

_Burning the bodies of dead children._

—nothing that the established Witchers would find too onerous to trade, labor for labor.

 _Even burning bodies. We mourn them. Anyone who’s watched the Masters after a death knows that they mourn._ Jorik couldn’t shake the feeling that it somehow wasn’t _enough_ , though, and eventually walked into the hot springs chilled by something well beyond their ability to warm. This was a chill he didn’t know how to shake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay everyone, _**BIG**_ warning for gross dead animal nonsense here; I have some actual description about field dressing (ie gutting) an animal, and describe Witchers eating raw organs. Blood and guts happen here! The field dressing isn’t as descriptive as you would find in an instruction manual, but it’s there, and there’s a pretty gross mention of liver flukes and the edibility thereof (and why you wouldn’t want to try to eat one alive), inspired by [Laurelnose’s](https://laurelnose.tumblr.com/post/623923316025065472/she-who-drank-vodka-with-cats-whatttt-i-just) [posts on them.](https://laurelnose.tumblr.com/post/624361027542417408/monster-parasites) (WARNINGS for parasites, discussion of, no photos included in the posts themselves)
> 
> The description of the gross dead animal nonsense really gets started after the line: **“None, obviously,” Lukas said, laughing and bracing part of the wyvern. “Get over here and help.”**
> 
> And ends right about: **“Ready to burn the extras?” Jorik said, looking at the viscera and discarded bits while rolling his shoulders. Lukas had cleared space for a fire while Jorik and Moldnar had been working on cutting.**
> 
> Also, warning for purposely-abrupt mention of child death and cremation at the very end. The thought starts the second paragraph after: **“Like I said,” Yves said, “getting old.”**


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here our paths diverge. Bomberqueen17’s potentially ending her story in her next chapter after a roughly-a-decade timeskip, and I’m keeping on through Lambert’s Trials (and hopefully to a bunch of snippets from his time as a trainee after that, though I’m about to move and start looking for a job and all that fun stuff, ack) for the rest of this. I hope all of you enjoyed the collab and that I remain interesting enough to keep reading past the end of it!

Close to five days later the storm had mostly blown itself out, but it had left what was, in Lambert’s admittedly-unprofessional opinion, a _huge_ amount of snow all over everything. He was a little surprised the trainees had only had to clear out the courtyard where they trained—the Witchers had taken care of the other paths that needed clearing and the courtyard where _they_ trained—but the amount of work it had been to clear their spot before starting afternoon swordwork made him grateful they didn’t have to shovel anything else. Lambert had almost fallen asleep in his supper after that, and after he’d almost tripped down the third flight of stairs trying to keep up his routine afterwards, he’d given up and gone to bed.

Now it was morning again, and Lambert and the rest of the unmutated kids were on egg-collecting and chicken-feeding duty. All the buildings were warmer than they should be, supposedly due to a system involving the hot springs under the keep, and the henhouse was downright cozy. The wall had a sheltered walkway that let you get into almost all the buildings, so there wasn’t any need to venture out into the icy courtyards unless you had business in one.

It was still much colder in the walkway than in the henhouse, and some of the birds grumbled sulkily and fluffed themselves up more as they walked in. The little red rooster looked at them with his beady little eyes, and Lambert glared right back at him. They’d hated each other on sight, and Lambert had gotten a couple of nasty jabs from him until he’d managed to pin the stupid bird down and confound him with petting. Tomas had just shaken his head and made Lambert sit still while he put something that stung like crazy into the wounds and wrapped them up to keep them from getting infected.

Lambert liked the dovecote best, even though it involved dealing with a _lot_ of bird shit, apparently for various alchemical purposes—at least none of the _doves_ had purposely decided to cause him problems, unlike the little red rooster and the one goat—but they rotated chores, and there wasn’t any point to complaining; he’d known that even before Jorik had brought him here.

He managed to dodge the couple of hens who tried to peck him as he gathered eggs, and he ducked his head and smirked a little at the sound of Rogen yelping as a hen got him. As he got down the line, though, something started to feel _wrong_. He couldn’t see or hear anything unusual, but something felt out of place. It wasn’t just him, either; the little rooster fluttered down from his perch and stalked over to Lambert’s ankles, turning his little crowned head back and forth as he walked like he was looking for something. Lambert took a second to pick the rooster up, so that Lambert wouldn’t trip over him, or in case the bird decided to try to take his unease out on Lambert’s legs. The rooster gave him a look, but submitted to the under-the-arm carry without trying to peck him or wiggling.

He was on his way to put the egg basket down so he could clean out the couple of nest boxes that had been soiled, just passing the heap of clean dried grass, when suddenly someone burst out of the pile. Lambert just got the impression of a hand reaching for him and he flinched backwards, _hard_ , and tossed the little rooster right at the person behind the hand. The rooster, of course, went _crazy_ , wings beating furiously, shrieking loudly, and thrashing with his spurs at the face of the guy, then at his arms as he tried to fend the bird off. Lambert had, by some small miracle, not overturned the basket of eggs, but he felt like he was about to collapse. His heart was pounding in his ears.

 _This is that stupid **thing** , like Geralt said,_ he realized, and forced himself to stagger a few steps away from the Witcher—it had to be a Witcher, there weren’t any other adults here—and promptly ran into a pair of legs.

“Lambert?”

He blinked up into Tomas’ face. It might not have been the first time the Witcher had said his name. Lambert wasn’t sure he could talk, but he nodded. Actually—all the other boys had gathered around as well, and Lambert felt something twist in his stomach as they whispered to each other.

“If you hurt that rooster you’re going to be getting us another one, Sasha,” Tomas said coldly to the still-flailing Witcher, not paying any attention to the other kids.

The Witcher—Sasha, apparently—dove right back into the pile of grass at that, and the little rooster, still squawking furiously, broke off the attack to try and dig the Witcher out. Tomas deftly scooped up the rooster, getting a grip on his bloody feet and chucking him gently under the chin until he stopped wriggling.

“Varin’s going to want to speak with you,” Tomas said as Sasha poked his head out again. The bloodied Witcher visibly winced.

* * *

“ _That was **not** the point of the exercise!_” Varin bellowed at the sheepish-looking Sasha as Lambert and the others headed towards the training yard. The hapless Witcher hadn’t even been allowed to clean up; his face was still a mask of blood. “ _The point is to improve the trainees’ **situational awareness** , not to ambush them with **no possible warning!** How you could possibly **so** **thoroughly misconstrue** my instructions—!_”

Sasha hunched in on himself. Lambert noticed that every Witcher he could see was glancing over at the fencing master and the younger Witcher. Lambert couldn’t help a little bit of malicious satisfaction as Varin continued to yell. He may have—well, he may have gotten a scare, but the Witcher was getting pretty thoroughly humiliated for it.

Varin’s eye landed on the group and he stopped and beckoned them over. Lambert and the others approached with some caution.

“We are, as you may have been able to guess, starting a new training exercise,” Varin said in a much more normal tone. “The lot of you need to work on your situational awareness—you can’t stumble blindly through life not paying any attention to your surroundings, or you’ll end up dead. I _discussed_ a method to rectify your oblivious attitudes with several of the younger Witchers, which this idiot bungled this morning.”

Sasha hunched a little more, radiating embarrassment.

“The way this is _intended_ to work is as such: as you’re going about your normal routines, there’s a chance that another Witcher will be _unobtrusive but not actively hiding_ nearby. If you don’t notice them, they will have a pencil or somesuch that they’ll mark you with. Each mark means you owe me fifty push-ups and a lap around the walls. Anyone who tries to remove a mark will owe another fifty-and-lap per mark after each offense, and if you try it three times, you’re going to be emptying chamberpots for the rest of the winter. Understood?”

“Understood, Master Varin,” they all chorused.

“Now get to your warmups,” Varin snapped.

 _This is going to suck,_ Lambert couldn’t help thinking as they ran along the wall. _I wonder if he picked to do it like this on purpose._

He was going to have to get over the stupid fits or he was going to have to notice every single Witcher who might be participating. Maybe even both.

“He didn’t say that the Witchers who’d be testing us would have anything to identify them, did he?” said Sven to the others.

“How’re we supposed to know who to pay attention to?” Rogen complained.

Lambert couldn’t help scoffing aloud at that.

“Something to say, Bert?” Rogen asked, annoyed.

Lambert hated that they’d just decided they could use nicknames with him. He didn’t hate it quite enough to fight with them over it, though.

“If you can’t figure it out, I’m not going to tell you,” he said, and then accelerated to try to catch up with Nazgil and Hen.

“Do you know what he means?” Rogen asked, sound fading as Lambert put space between them.

“He’s just being annoying,” Lambert just heard Pip answer. 

Lambert was too out of breath to scoff, but he rolled his eyes. Varin had _said_ situational awareness, not threat recognition—he wanted them to notice everyone in a room, not to specifically be on the lookout for someone to attack them. The fact that it would boil down to someone basically attacking them was just a way to keep score.

Lambert got some pretty spectacular bruises during sparring practice, because he couldn’t help his eyes from flickering over the yard at regular intervals, in case anyone had come in. He took the scolding and the extra work with his teeth gritted, and headed off to afternoon chores feeling jumpy and irritated.

The Bastion kids were spending part of the afternoon carding or combing the last of the fiber from the autumn goat shearing. Lambert was working on a particularly annoying bit, from one of the young goats, when a slight flicker of movement near the door caught his eye. He slowed his hands and glanced up to see a comparatively-skinny Witcher with blond hair walking in. The Witcher caught Lambert’s eye, grinned, and actually winked at him before starting to meander across the shed—it looked like he was going to talk to one of the Witchers doing other work there, but his path was bringing him near their group.

Sure enough, when the rawboned blond drew level with them, he quickly gave Haken, Rogen, Pip, Jonah, Owen, and Moritz swipes across bare skin with a grease pencil he was holding, drawing yelps of surprise from most of them.

“Keep an eye out next time,” he said laughingly, before continuing on to talk to the Witcher he’d been headed towards.

Rogen had a deep scowl on his face and made a move like he was about to wipe off the mark, but Haken caught his hand.

“Do you _want_ to be doing extra work?” Haken hissed in concern. “Varin’s going to ask them who they got, you know he is, and you know who he’s going to believe, too.”

Rogen lowered his hand, but he still looked near-murderously angry. Lambert quietly decided to stay out of his way for a while, just in case he decided to take out his upset on the unmarked boys.

By the end of the day, even Lambert had a mark on him, from a very unassuming young Witcher who had slid into the dining hall completely unnoticed while they were having an early supper. Tomas took them all to Varin during the time that they would have usually been bathing, and as Varin turned his cold stare on them Lambert met his eyes and slowly and deliberately wiped the mark off of his cheek.

He didn’t think he was imagining the way Varin’s gaze lingered on him after that.

“Get moving!” the man barked, and they all started, mostly much slower than they usually were.

Lambert pushed himself and was through two laps on the walls a little faster than about half of the others. He almost threw himself to the ground for the push-ups, partially resenting his own stupid competitive streak that had led him to deliberately increasing his workload, but he’d made his decision and he wasn’t going to take it back. It wasn’t as though Varin would let him do it either.

Having to wait for all the others to finish was frustrating, and even Nazgil and Hen were shifting from foot to foot impatiently by the end of it. Bathing ate up yet more time, and Lambert thought about skipping his usual exercises for a little while—he’d done more work today than he usually did. Of course, the others had too, so he peeled off from the other kids with a sigh when Tomas freed them for the evening. He wasn’t going to get better than them unless he was doing more than they were.

* * *

Lambert was on the third floor again when he noticed movement, headed towards him. He shot upright, registering the silhouette as probably the same Witcher Geralt had been kissing, almost a week ago—and he and Geralt were _probably_ close enough in age that he could tag Lambert if Lambert didn’t notice him.

“Whoa there,” the Witcher said, and yep, that really deep voice cinched it. The Witcher walked a little closer, and tilted his head slightly. “Oh, it’s our little spy.”

“Wasn’t spying,” Lambert said, tensing slightly, in case the Witcher took offense.

“You sort of were,” the Witcher said, but he was close enough now that Lambert could see him smile. “I won’t hold it against you, though. Gods know we got up to enough as kids.”

Lambert relaxed very slightly, and let his eyes dart across the hallway, just in case someone else was there.

“Ah, I’m alone tonight,” the Witcher said. “I never got your name, kid. I’m Eskel, Geralt’s year-mate.”

“Lambert,” he said cautiously.

“And what are you doing on the third floor again, Lambert?” Eskel asked. “If you’re not spying.”

Lambert bristled slightly. “I run the stairs and do push-ups and stuff in the hallways.”

Eskel’s eyebrows went up a bit. “In your free time?”

“Yes,” Lambert half-snapped.

“That’s very dedicated,” Eskel said, seemingly unconcerned.

“Everyone else was better than me already,” Lambert muttered, disarmed a bit by Eskel’s nonchalance.

“So you’re doing extra, all on your own, to catch up?” Eskel said. “That’s a lot of dedication.”

Lambert looked up, certain he was being teased, but Eskel looked completely serious, at least as far as he could see.

“I just want to—” Lambert started, but stopped. _Prove that I can do better than any of them_ seemed a little too much to admit to a stranger.

Eskel didn’t seem to mind him not finishing his sentence— he smiled at Lambert, showing off straight white teeth. “I think you will, Lambert. I think you will.”

With that and a nod and another smile, the dark-haired Witcher turned and walked into one of the rooms off the hall. Lambert stood there for another few moments, trying to parse what had just happened. He had to give it up as an adult being weird before too long, and got back to what he was doing, feeling both a little unsettled and a little— warm, somehow.

When he finished his routine and got back into the Bastion dorm, he was still half-thinking about the Witcher. The other kids all groaned when Tomas showed up immediately after Lambert to put out the lights, and Lambert could hear quiet complaints about how the extra work had eaten their free time, lying there in the dark with Zdena.

“I hope we get better at this fast,” he murmured to Zdena. “We’re not going to be getting free time back until then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, Bomerbqueen17 and I also found an edit that fits roughly what 23-year-old Geralt looks like: [behold! a baby!](https://sexualsportswear.tumblr.com/post/159733413690/we-have-witnessed-and-in-fact-on-several)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday to Lambert! Or, well, birthday to Lambert anyways. He doesn't have a canonical date of birth but I decided I wanted it to be sometime in mid-November.
> 
> Check the end notes for your warnings! (there's one potentially _really serious one_ , so might be for the best!)

Nobody improved much over the next three days. Lambert got another four marks and wiped one off in front of Varin, so he was up to three laps and a hundred and fifty push-ups for each time he didn’t notice one of the assistants. That put him near the middle of finishing—none of them escaped marks completely, but nobody else had tried to remove one either. Pip and Rogen were the worst at noticing things, possibly because they were so close with each other, but Haken was next; his chattiness was working against him, Lambert suspected.

The others continued to complain about the loss of free time, but only among themselves. Lambert saved his complaints for Zdena, since his were focused more on oblivious idiots than on Varin’s plan.

“It’s not like he was _wrong_ ,” he said quietly to them on the third evening. “Not paying attention means trouble.”

Of course he wasn’t going to say that in front of the others, though. He remembered the look on Rogen’s face. Even though he hadn’t seemed as blindingly angry since, Lambert didn’t trust that he wasn’t hiding it, _or_ that he wouldn’t explode with it at some point. And while Lambert was prepared to give as good as he got, Rogen was taller and heavier than he was, and had been training longer—not to mention he didn’t want to find out what the punishment was for fighting. Nobody’d taken a belt to any of them yet despite there having been some truly creatively exhausting punishments, like Jorik had claimed, but that just meant none of them had crossed that line _so far._ He had to remember that.

He fell asleep still feeling particularly grim.

The next morning didn’t end up improving his mood either; they were on early kitchen duty, so they were up hours before the sun rose, and none of them had gotten enough sleep. Lambert kept one wary eye on Rogen, who had snapped even at Pip.

Rogen wasn’t completely stupid, for all that he was still mad about their training. He volunteered to haul wood, along with Lambert, and waited until they were alone at the woodshed before he started shit.

“Well, Bert?” he said, crossing his arms. Lambert cursed himself viciously for having let Rogen shift to block the door while he was picking up logs.

“Well _what_?” Lambert asked, shifting his grip on the pieces of birch he was holding.

“What did you do?” the boy asked, glowering. “How’d you convince them to go easy on you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Lambert said, although he thought he might.

“You’ve gotten less marks than any of us so far, for all that you’re doing extra work for no reason,” Rogen said, stepping forwards. “ _How did you do it?_ ”

“I didn’t do _shit,_ ” Lambert snarled.

“You fucking _liar,_ ” Rogen said, and took another couple of steps. Lambert backed up as he went, to a corner where the wood was fairly well-stacked and he could scramble away if this continued going badly. “You did _something_ for them. You’ve been a favorite since you’ve arrived— is it that your Witcher has more friends? Or are you just sucking Varin’s _dick_ in your free time?”

“Or maybe I just work harder than the rest of you combined,” Lambert hissed. He wasn’t completely blind to sex stuff— he’d slept in the same space as his parents had, as thankfully infrequent his dad forcing Mom had been, but the idea that someone— that _he_ — could trade it for preferential treatment was— laughable. Still, he could feel himself shaking in anger at the accusation—at the assumption that _anyone_ would go out of their way for him like that. Let Rogen think it was fear. He would know better soon enough.

Rogen’s face twisted in rage and he started forwards again. Lambert dropped all the wood he was holding but for one log and swung it full-force into Rogen’s shoulder. As the boy grunted in pain, Lambert dropped the log and made a dash for the exit.

Unfortunately, though Rogen was basically lazy, he wasn’t incompetent. His uninjured arm shot out and he grabbed Lambert by the back of his jacket, hauling him back into range and beating him about the head and shoulders with the other hand; Lambert felt a bright starburst of pain as the boy’s fist caught him in the eye. He tried to twist the little finger of the hand Rogen had on his jacket, but the boy lashed out again and caught him in the nose, sending blood gushing down his face and over his chin. Lambert clawed at the soft spots he could reach, cursing the heavy jacket Rogen was wearing that made it harder to get at his skin.

Rogen hauled Lambert closer and punched him in the ribs; Lambert did his best to stomp on the other kid’s toes. He connected, and Rogen let go of Lambert’s jacket collar to try and shove him away. Lambert took the opportunity to bite Rogen’s hand, tasting copper—probably blood from his nose. Rogen smacked Lambert in the eye a moment later, trying to get him to let go, and Lambert couldn’t help opening his mouth in a yelp. 

“You _son of a bitch,_ ” Rogen hissed, shaking his hand. 

Lambert snarled at the epithet and took the opening—he kicked Rogen right in the groin. The half-strangled screech _that_ caused would draw Witchers, sure enough, and Lambert took advantage of Rogen's hunching over himself to scrabble over the side of the woodpile and make a break for the door of the shed. Of course, he ran right into the midsection of a Witcher who was opening the door.

“What the _hell_ are you fools doing?” the Witcher bellowed.

Lambert blinked the stars away and looked up at the Witcher, face set—it was Urdo, one of the cooks. He kept his mouth shut—it wouldn’t help to complain.

“Come on,” Urdo said, punctuating the statement by grabbing Lambert by the scruff. “You too,” he said to Rogen, who was still curled over, and waited until the kid struggled to his feet before bringing the both of them along.

 _I guess I’m going to find out if this is crossing the line,_ Lambert thought.

“You couldn’t have gotten in a fight on your own damn time?” Urdo said as he hauled them along. “Sven and Sven! You’re on wood-hauling,” he called to the small knot of trainees in the kitchen. Lambert saw Pip look on in shock before Sven elbowed him, and they ran for the door.

“You two are working under my eye until the rush is over,” Urdo said to them. “Then Petr or Tomas will deal with you.”

Lambert had to keep pausing during the first half hour to wipe away the blood dripping from his nose. His eye was slowly swelling closed too, and throbbing steadily. He was wilting by the end of breakfast—Urdo’d kept them even busier than they usually were. Rogen at least hadn’t tried to sabotage him or leave him more of the work or ‘accidentally’ poke any of his injuries, but that might have been because Urdo _was_ right there.

“Right,” Urdo growled at them, then turned and called across the kitchens. “Petr!”

“What’s the trouble, Urdo?” Petr asked, wiping his hands off on a cloth slung over a shoulder while walking over.

“These two were fighting in the woodshed this morning,” Urdo said. "Beat each other up but good; Rogen's got bruises and a bite on his hand and Lambert's got a black eye and had a bloody nose."

Rogen started to make a protesting noise, probably about Urdo not mentioning the kick, but Petr clicked his tongue and crossed his arms, frowning. “What started this fight, hm?”

Lambert snuck a look at Rogen, who'd turned to glare at Petr in stony silence, jaw set. Lambert resisted the urge to roll his eyes. If he knew _anything_ , it was that refusing to explain when an adult asked for it wasn’t going to cut it.

“It was just a stupid argument,” Lambert muttered, trying to watch Rogen sidelong to be sure of his reaction. 

“An argument over _what?_ ” Petr demanded. 

“It was _stupid,_ ” Lambert repeated. It had been, and he wasn’t about to whine about it. Rogen had switched his glare to Lambert, but he wasn't saying anything.

“If a stupid argument ends in this much blood, clearly you don’t have enough to do,” Petr said in a tone that was probably supposed to be foreboding. “I’ll be speaking to Tomas about this.”

Lambert blinked his working eye. That sounded just like extra chores, _again_. Exhausting, but— still not a hiding. Rogen twitched and his scowl got even deeper.

“The two of you, eat quickly, while I speak with Tomas,” Petr said.

Lambert’s eyebrows went up, but he wasn’t about to turn down an opportunity for food. He skittered over to one of the huge kettles of kasha and snagged a bowl, eating so rapidly he burned his tongue. Tomas came in shortly after he’d had his first spoonful, and was pulled aside by Petr and Urdo.

“Cocksucker,” Rogen whispered to him while walking by with his own bowl, so quietly Lambert could barely even hear him over the bustle of the kitchen. Lambert snarled back at him on general principle and focused on his kasha.

Tomas held them both back for a moment after he sent the rest of their group on.

"Nothing broken or still bleeding on either of you?" he asked, and both of them shook their heads. "Then get moving, Varin's waiting."

Rogen growled quietly but ran after everyone else. Lambert let him get through the door, then dashed after, keeping an eye out to make sure the boy hadn’t ducked into a corner to ambush him or something. He hadn’t, but Lambert was last to the training yard because of his caution, and Varin gave him a look and made all the trainees do an extra lap of the walls. Everyone was glaring at him after that.

The day did not improve from there. Rogen clipped him in the swelled-shut eye during sword drills, in a way that just plausibly could have been an accident, and Lambert couldn't help yelping in pain.

“Would you care to tell me how you managed to hit your partner in the face while practicing a low strike?” Varin barked at Rogen.

“By accident, Master Varin,” Rogen said.

“Witchers can’t afford accidents,” Varin said. “You should have been able to block that, Lambert. Ten repetitions, same arrangement, now. ”

Lambert stifled a growl and got ready to defend. It was a lot harder when he could only see out of one eye—that was how Rogen had managed to hit him, swinging on his blind side. With Varin watching, he did manage to block more than half of Rogen’s strikes, and the ones that got through didn’t connect hard enough to bruise, or so it felt. He could probably credit that to his hit to Rogen’s shoulder that morning—normally the bigger kid hit like a sack of rocks.

“Again,” Varin snapped. “You’re bringing your arm around too far, Rogen, and wasting momentum and time. Lambert, stop trying to watch his arms and watch his torso instead.”

The personal attention lasted much longer than it usually did. Lambert’s arms were shaking from the work, and he could feel his pulse in his swollen black eye. He berated himself as he went to put away the training sword and head to lunch. Clearly he wasn’t working hard enough, if he was this exhausted after a little more exercise. 

He was on his way into the great hall when he felt something brush his bruised cheek, setting off fresh throbbing in his eye. He twisted to the side to see the Witcher Sasha there with a grease pen and a smile. Lambert only just held back a scream of rage and stormed into the hall, fists clenched. He spun around once he was through the doors, looking over the entire room and the Witchers within it. Sasha was still standing by the entrance, pen raised, looking confused. Lambert couldn’t help baring his teeth at the Witcher before turning back around and heading for the food.

Lambert took his bounty of bread, sausage, cheese, and vegetables over into a corner. He wanted a vantage point on as many of the entrances as possible. He did have a little trouble alternating between gulping down his food and looking around, but he had a bit of time left over after he’d finished. He returned the plate and slipped out the smaller inset door in the massive main hall doors. Once he was in the courtyard, he walked along the snowdrifts piled along the walls until he found a clean one, and pressed a handful of snow to his black eye. The cold stung, but it also felt good. Lambert lingered there, cooling off his face for as long as he dared, then headed back into the hall so Tomas could collect them for their afternoon work.

* * *

Lambert did manage to avoid being marked by Geralt, Eskel, and a third Witcher who seemed to be a friend of theirs that afternoon—he’d noticed Geralt’s hair out of the corner of his good eye—but he wound up tripping over something in the laundry shed and went sprawling, sending the clothes he’d been carrying all across the floor. He wound up having to scrub them again, this time his face burning in anger and embarrassment and with a huge wet spot all down his front. They had him change into dry clothes before the Bastion kids left and were presented to Varin for extra work, at least.

“Come on, you two,” Tomas said to Lambert and Rogen when they’d finished their penalties. “As soon as you’re done here, you’re going to go help out in the kitchen until an hour past lights-out, for the next week.”

Rogen made a noise at that, and Lambert’s heart sunk. He was exhausted and sore on top of it, and being kept past lights-out ensured that he wouldn’t have time to talk with Zdena, or Rogen with Pip, before falling asleep when they _did_ get back to the dorm.

Rogen kept glaring at Lambert on the way back to the kitchens. Lambert refrained from rolling his eyes—if Rogen hadn’t decided to beat him up over his stupid idea, they wouldn’t _be_ in this situation, but the other kid wasn’t going to listen to that explanation.

“Rogen, you’re with me,” Urdo said when they got there. “Lambert, you’re working with Sait.”

Lambert walked over to the beckoning Sait. He’d seen the Witcher in the kitchens before, but he hadn’t ever worked with him; he did a lot of the butchering, which the kids hadn’t had to work on yet.

“Ever sharpened knives?” Sait asked him.

Lambert shrugged. He had helped with keeping Mom’s two treasured cooking knives sharp, but he’d seen more kinds of knives being used in the kitchens at Kaer Morhen than he knew existed, to say nothing of all the _other_ sharp things, and he didn’t know if you had to treat those differently.

“It’s past time for you to learn properly, then,” Sait said.

Lambert sighed, just a little. Hauling or washing would have required a lot less thought. 

Quite a bit of time passed; Lambert collected knives the chefs needed sharpened, was lectured to about varieties of whetstone and sharpening techniques and knives in general as the stones themselves soaked in a bucket of water, and then set to working on some blades that undoubtedly could be replaced if he really fucked up while Sait sharpened the important knives. Then, of course, they had to clean up when they’d finished.

Lambert was just carrying the empty tub the whetstones had been soaking in over to storage when he overheard Said talking to Tellen.

“—Coming to the middle of November already,” Sait said.

Lambert had to stop for a second. _Fuck_ , it _had_ been over a week since the snowstorm had first hit. And it had been Saovine just before Jorik had shown up—there had been a bonfire, though they hadn't burned a Falka effigy, and the Witchers had been drinking and singing and there had been a bunch of fancy food at supper. It _was_ almost the middle of November. Which meant—

“Lambert? Something wrong?” Sait asked. Lambert shook his head and closed the distance, putting the tub down where it had been earlier.

Sait reached out and gently ruffled his hair, which had Lambert freezing in place.

“You did a good job, kid. There’s some of the food discards on the oven hearth for whoever wants some, why don’t you grab something?”

Lambert nodded slowly and zipped off as soon as Sait stopped touching him, a little rattled.

Petr was standing by the hearth, and pressed a cup into Lambert’s hands before he could say anything. “Have some of the tisane. And I have two pastries for you, too,” the Witcher said.

Lambert took a sip, seeing as he probably wasn’t going to get the food until he was done with the drink. The tisane was a little flowery, but it was a lot better than the herbal tea the trainees got, and sweet with honey. He drained it quickly, then collected the food and started for the dorms, keeping an eye out in case Rogen decided to try anything.

The smell emanating from the handpie tempted Lambert into taking a bite in one of the more open hallways. The piecrust had cracked open at some point, but the inside was perfectly good. Lambert could taste chives and garlic and venison, and before he knew it he’d finished the whole thing and had started in on the slightly burned sweet-tasting bun.

He got into the dorms and into bed without any major incident, and deliberately laid down on his bad side so the throbbing from his eye pressed against the pillow would keep him awake a little longer.

“I realized it’s my birthday soon, Zdena,” he breathed to them. “When I prayed for one without Dad, I never thought I’d have one without Mom too.”

Even when everything had been even more terrible than usual, Mom had always given him _something_ near the middle of November. His dad might mutter about children born past Saovine being cursed, but Mom would kiss his forehead and press some special food or new socks or, four years ago, _Zdena_ , into his hands and tell him she loved him. And now here he was, in a hidden fortress in a completely different country, probably about to die in spring, all because of his _fucking father_.

“If this is— going to be my last birthday,” he said, “I’m going to celebrate it anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features ten year olds having knowledge of sex and, in one case, how it could be used as a bribe or payment for special treatment. This kid also claims that Lambert might be having sex with an adult for special treatment. _Nobody_ at Kaer Morhen is interested in or would ever have sex with children, and if/when they find out about the allegations this kid is making, it's going to be taken very damn seriously. The kid, also, likely has not undergone this form of abuse, and is just extrapolating what he knows about adult relationships and applying it without knowing how much worse it is in the context he's applying it to. This topic is likely to come up again as the kid continues to pick on Lambert.
> 
> Also, warning for sudden mention of child death (in the Trials) near the very end of the chapter again.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, originally I was intending to post this on the seventeenth. Whoops. Fluff incoming, though!

Jorik was worried about Lambert. The work he was doing in the alchemy labs meant his schedule hadn’t overlapped with the Bastion kids’ at all, and, concerningly, he hadn’t seen or heard Lambert running around the hallways for a few days. He’d gotten used to hearing little feet trotting up and down the corridors in the early evening in the short amount of time he’d been back, and its absence left him wondering what had happened.

He was walking back from a late bath, having resolved to hunt up Kavan and ask him about Lambert the next day, when he smelled tears and— cassis and herbs? It certainly wasn’t impossible that someone on this floor would be crying, but the cassis seemed out of place.

Curious now, Jorik followed his nose. It led him to a little niche that was much too small for an adult to curl comfortably in. Another deep breath made him freeze as he suddenly caught the scent of the kid curled up in the niche—that was _Lambert_. They’d slept close enough on the journey here that Jorik had memorized what the kid smelled like. And he was crying.

Jorik purposely scuffed his foot on the floor as he approached the niche and heard a small, sharp inhalation.

“Lambert?” he said softly, kneeling to take him closer to the kid’s eye level.

Lambert was holding a little jar close to his chest; that was where the smell of cassis and lemon balm was coming from. Jorik blinked and let in a little more light—the jar didn’t look like any of the ones used in the kitchens at Kaer Morhen, but something about it was familiar. Before he could place where he’d seen the style before, Lambert looked up, and Jorik was immediately distracted from his wondering and from some nearby footsteps by the extensive bruising on the kid's face. His eye was swollen half-shut, there was black and purple mottling across his cheek and his nose, and there were a few other scattered bruises as well.

“What _happened?_ ” Jorik asked in shock. It almost looked like Lambert had gotten hit in the face with a pendulum, but as a Bastion kid, he shouldn’t be training with them yet. Wall-work, yes, but the distribution of bruises across his face had to have come from multiple points of connection—

“Got in a fight,” Lambert mumbled.

—and that would be the other option, that he’d been hit multiple times.

"I hope whoever gave you that looks worse," Jorik said, and felt a surge of panic as Lambert screwed up his face again and ducked his head, and Jorik smelled new tears.

"Hey, kid, what's wrong? Really?"

Lambert sniffed and said "He's so _stupid_."

 _"He's" so stupid._ _If one of the other kids has been picking on him—_ Jorik cut the thought off.

"What's he been doing? Or saying?" Jorik asked instead.

"It's just— _dumb_ , and _wrong!_ And even if it wasn't wrong, trying to beat me up would be even stupider!" Lambert said heatedly.

Jorik only barely resisted the urge to wrap the kid up in a hug. He didn't know how it would be received, and he didn't want to upset Lambert further.

"If something happens again, tell one of the adults in charge of your group," Jorik said. "If there's a pattern showing this wasn't just a one-time argument, they'll _definitely_ take it seriously."

Lambert didn't look particularly happy at that.

"Or any adult you trust, if you don't want to talk to Kavan or Tomas or Varin," Jorik amended. He didn't think any of them would be a problem if one of the other kids was picking on Lambert, but Lambert might not believe that.

Lambert still looked displeased, but he made an assent-shaped noise, which was probably all Jorik was going to get.

“I can understand not wanting to be around whoever it was,” Jorik said, “But I have to admit, I’m a little stumped on the cassis.”

Lambert scrubbed at his face and hissed in pain, but not before Jorik smelled more tears welling. Where the hell was the cassis from, if it had Lambert _crying_ over it? Jorik only remembered him crying—

The first couple of days after Lambert had left with him, Jorik realized, and it hit him in the next moment where he’d seen the jar before.

“Ah shit, kid. Missing your mom?” he asked.

Lambert snapped his head upright. “How did you—”

Jorik blinked. “Just— the jar. Matches the one that had those pickled eggs in, and your mom packed you some things.”

The kid still looked kind of tense, but he’d relaxed a touch.

Jorik smiled a little at him. “Don’t worry. We can’t read minds.”

Lambert scoffed a little. “I know _that_.”

Jorik let the smile fade into a softer expression. "So, anything else bothering you? Just while we’re here?"

Jorik suspected he could be stepping into a Myrmeleon nursery with that question, but he couldn’t _not_ ask. Especially not after having had Geralt approach him the other day and say, rather haltingly, that he’d spoken with Lambert about something or another and suggested that he come to Jorik if he needed an adult for advice or help. Jorik rather thought that was severely overestimating Lambert’s trust of him, but—

Lambert looked away slightly. "I'm not a— _baby_ or anything," he said. “But Mom would always— she always had a gift for me. And this is the last one, whether I live or not.”

Jorik had to stop to think for a second, because that was a topic he hadn’t anticipated.

“I hadn’t realized you were turning ten,” Jorik said. “Your mom is a good woman, to make sure you got to celebrate.”

Lambert shrugged. “When he remembered, my dad always said I was cursed, being born after Saovine. Wasn’t exactly celebrating.”

“That claim is pure bullshit,” Jorik said, looking right at Lambert. “I’ve known plenty of people who were born in winter, and they aren’t any more cursed than anybody else.”

Lambert shrugged again, and Jorik sighed. “Not that it probably would have changed anything, but— just so that _you_ know, kid.”

That got him a slightly surprised look, but still no words.

Jorik shifted to the side. “I know you wanted some alone time, I probably screwed that up.” 

“It’s,” the kid said, looking very uncomfortable. “‘S not— bad.”

While Jorik was still slightly stunned by this pronouncement, Lambert got to his feet.

“Tomas’ll be looking for me soon,” he said, looking anywhere but at Jorik, and capped his jar and trotted off.

Jorik listened as Lambert’s footsteps faded, considering the possibility that he may not have completely fucked this up. A scuff of a nearby foot brought him back to the present.

"You heard," he said to Tomas.

"Yes. I won't get on him for not heading straight back," Tomas said, and sighed. "He's actively rejected efforts to make friends, and he got pretty close to starting a fight with Rogen a couple of months back. I know you like him, and Rogen is an entitled little shit sometimes, but if Lambert is provoking fights—”

“He got into a fight at the Temple of Melitele,” Jorik said. “Because an older child there tried to steal something of his, according to the novice who witnessed the whole thing. I don’t think you would call that provocation so much as a reaction.”

Tomas nodded. “We’ll keep an eye on them, when we can. If he tells you anything else…”

“If it’s relevant, I’ll let you know,” Jorik said.

Tomas gave him a wry little smile at that, then turned to walk away. As he reached the end of the hall, he paused and turned back. 

“You know, some of the boys will get together and give each other little gifts around their birthdays. Nothing too extravagant, but I can’t say we’ve ever minded.”

Jorik blinked in surprise, but nodded slowly. “I’ll keep it in mind,” he said.

Instead of heading back to his room, Jorik turned and headed for the kitchens. They were never truly quiet, not in a place as busy as Kaer Morhen, but they were winding down for the night.

“Jorik,” he heard Petr say, and he turned around to accept the other Witcher’s hug. “What brings you here this evening? One of Lisbeth's students has contributed some herbal ale for whoever wants it, and I can spare some sausages, cheese, and bread if you're spending time with others.”

Jorik grinned. "Not tonight, Petr. Actually, the reason I’m here— you know Lambert, of course.”

“I do,” Petr said. “Poor child, though at least he’s careful about vermin-proofing his food caches.”

Jorik grimaced slightly. “Yes. He’s my Child Surprise, and I just found out he’s turning ten— and the other kids…”

“He has not befriended anyone yet,” Petr said knowingly.

“Yes,” Jorik said. “So I was thinking I’d get him a couple of things, just from me and Arcturus and whoever else wants to contribute.”

“And you come to me because you want to give him some sweets. I will make them,” Petr said. “You should speak with Geralt and Ksenya. I believe both of them would like to give him something.”

Jorik blinked. Geralt made sense, but he hadn’t been aware that Ksenya had even met Lambert. She didn’t tend to volunteer to work with trainees, at least as far as he knew. Potentially she’d run into him somewhere else, but Petr didn’t seem like he was about to clarify.

“I will,” Jorik said, and Petr nodded firmly.

“Sernik,” Petr said, clearly thinking aloud. “And perhaps some gingerbread. When will you need them?”

“A couple days, maybe, so people can get things together,” Jorik said. “Thank you, Petr.”

“Of course,” Petr said. “Take some food with you.”

“I will,” Jorik said, and helped himself to a small bowl of the anything-goes stew that was always simmering on one of the hearths before he left.

* * *

Jorik brought up his idea at breakfast the next morning, careful to keep his voice down. Some preference from him towards Lambert was to be expected, but the others would probably be given odd looks for so much attention to a kid just about to undergo the Trials. All of the others were on board with the idea, even Kavan, which surprised Jorik slightly.

He caught Geralt headed down the steps with Eskel and Gweld, pretty clearly fresh off a night spent together.

“Geralt? Can I have a word with you?” he asked.

Geralt looked a little bemused, but nodded. Gweld bounced his eyebrows at the young Witcher, and Eskel sighed slightly and grabbed Gweld’s arm.

“We’ll grab a bowl for you,” he said to Geralt, and towed Gweld down the stairs. 

“What did you want to talk about?” Geralt asked, a little hesitantly.

“I found out Lambert’s turning ten,” Jorik said. “And since he doesn’t really have any friends among the other kids— I figured I’d see if some of the people who know him have something small they could give him.”

Geralt half-frowned at him, looking into the distance, clearly giving the proposition some thought.

“Petr suggested I ask Ksenya as well,” Jorik added.

“That’s— probably a good idea,” Geralt said. “I think I have something I could give him. Do you need it right now?”

“Just within a day or so will be fine,” Jorik said, deciding to not prod about Ksenya further. If neither Geralt or Petr felt it was their place to explain, it was up to her or Lambert to tell if they wanted to. 

Geralt nodded. “I’ll get it to you tonight, probably.”

“Thanks,” Jorik said, and headed out to his work group.

Ksenya was a little hander to find, but Jorik ran into her that evening in the hot springs.

“Joik,” she said, looking up at him slightly where he was sitting on the edge of the pool she was in. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’m collecting some birthday presents for Lambert,” Jorik said. “Petr suggested I let you know.”

She hummed, a bit of a smile on her face. “Good of him to mention.”

Jorik bit his tongue and tried not to sigh.

Ksenya turned to look at him head-on. “It’s really not anything to worry about, Jorik. Geralt and I talked to Lambert about a couple of things.”

“Geralt mentioned— something, he wasn’t very clear. Just that he, and apparently you, suggested Lambert talk to me if he needed help,” Jorik said.

“We did,” Ksenya said. “If it comes up, it comes up, but it’s not anything bad.”

“So nothing that might have to do with why he got into a fight with one of the other kids?” Jorik asked.

“What?” Ksenya said, sitting up straighter.

“Yeah,” Jorik said. “All I got was that it was about something stupid, and that it would have been even dumber if the other kid was right.”

Ksyena thought for a bit. “I don’t _know_ if it’s completely unrelated, but it sounds like it,” she said.

"As long as you're confident," Jorik conceded.

"Reasonably so," she said. "As far as a gift— I have just the thing. Come on."

Jorik followed her up to her room and waited as she went in.

“Here we are,” she said, handing him a brilliant red bundle of wool. “It might be a little long, but he can wrap it. There’s something else in there too, since the air’s so dry up here.”

Jorik turned the wool over in his hands and realized it was a thick scarf, wrapped around a smaller shape that might be a salve pot.

“Thank you,” Jorik said, and she nodded.

On his way back, he stopped by Geralt’s room. The younger Witcher was there, and answered when he knocked.

“Jorik,” he said. “Give me a minute.”

When he came back to the door, he looked almost nervous.

“Here,” he said, handing Jorik a small but good-quality sharpening stone. “And— here.”

Jorik blinked a little at the amber bead Geralt dropped into his hand. It was easily the size of his smallest nail, and polished so that the honey-colored resin almost glowed.

Geralt shrugged when Jorik looked up at him. “It’s not exactly useful, but it’s pretty,” he said.

“It is that,” Jorik said, and decided to leave it alone.

Jorik had all the gifts by the next day. After a little extra thought, he added a small knife from his own collection to the pile and wrapped everything in the scarf. He stowed the bundle in the chest at the foot of his bed, and went to give Petr and Tomas a heads-up.

* * *

He caught the kid on the way back from the kitchens that evening.

“Hey, Lambert,” he said, and Lambert stopped short.

“I have a couple of things for you,” Jorik continued, watching the kid’s eyes flick to the bundles and the plate he was holding and then widen. 

“What?” Lambert said, in clear shock.

“You mentioned you were turning ten,” Jorik said. “So I figured…” he gestured slightly with the plate of sernik.

A couple voices—other Witchers, walking back to their rooms—echoed off the stone of the hallway, and Lambert flinched.

“I know somewhere more private?” Jorik said, trying to stop the kid from running off.

Lambert’s gaze flicked to the open end of the hallway and then back to Jorik, and he nodded. Jorik didn’t waste time but took off at a quick walk towards a slightly more secluded spot. Hopefully nobody would already be there.

His luck was in— the little window niche was empty, and Lambert was still with him.

“You— _got me_ something?” Lambert burst out as Jorik was putting everything down on the wide sill.

“I did,” Jorik said. “And a couple other people contributed, too. Some of my friends, Kavan, Petr— and Petr suggested I ask Geralt and Ksenya, too.”

Lambert snapped his eyes up to Jorik’s face.

“She didn’t say how you met,” Jorik said. “I admit I’m a little curious, but private is private.”

Lambert nodded, very slowly.

“Cake?” Jorik asked, moving the hand-sized sernik closer to Lambert.

As expected, Lambert wasn’t one to turn down food when it was given to him—he took a slice and started eating, gaze flicking between the cake, the presents, and Jorik’s face. When he’d finished the slice, he looked down at the plate and then at Jorik.

“Do you want some?” he asked.

“If you’re sure,” Jorik said, a little touched.

Lambert nodded, and Jorik took a piece and saluted Lambert with it.

“Happy birthday, Lambert,” he said.

Together they finished the sernik, in what Jorik thought might actually be comfortable silence. When they were done, Jorik sighed a little.

“I’m sure you have another long day tomorrow,” he said to Lambert, who shrugged slightly.

Jorik picked up the gifts wrapped in the scarf and handed them to the kid. “There’s some balm in there that will help with your bruises,” he said. “In the plain-glazed jar.”

Lambert nodded and looked at him for a long minute. “Thanks,” he muttered, and turned and trotted off.

Jorik couldn’t help but smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Myrmeleon: a completely made up name for a kind of monster in the Witcher universe that is basically a giant antlion larvae. I took it from the scientific name for these insects, Myrmeleontidae.
> 
> People born in winter being cursed: this is from the books, where there’s mentioned to be a belief that children born between Saovine and Imbolc will become strigas (and I had a whole-ass worldbuilding question about strigas I didn’t manage to figure out for it to feature in the conversation); I figured that it was also potentially possible for the belief to be more general depending on where you were and who had been telling it, hence my use of the much more general “cursed”.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Finally! This one took a lot to write, I gotta say, but I finally figured it out. Chapter 11 will hopefully take less time.
> 
> No particular warnings for this one.

Lambert had almost needed to scope out a new spot to hide things in, after Jorik had— well, collected so many things to give him. Everything he’d been given was _so nice_ , and he felt a little guilty for mostly not using it, but he could well imagine what Rogen would think if he saw it, and Lambert wasn’t eager to start another fight so soon. The knife at least he could string on his belt, instead of his eating-knife, and nobody really noticed or cared. The bead was carefully threaded onto a bit of string and tied around Zdena’s neck— that way they got a necklace and Lambert wasn’t going to lose it. Most of the other things fit well enough into the carefully-made hole in the mattress he slept on, and he could take one or the other out to look at or use when nobody else was around. (The bruise balm _had_ helped.)

The scarf and the other little salve pot, though— he _wanted_ to wear the scarf, and he _wanted_ to wear the slightly tinted balm in the salve pot, but— the scarf was so bright and colorful, the other kids would definitely know that he’d gotten it from somewhere else. And the balm— well, it was true that he hadn’t seen anyone being cruel to Ksenya, or to any of the other couple of Witchers who weren’t men that he’d noticed, but all that meant was that _he hadn’t seen it._ And he _definitely_ wasn’t about to risk it around Rogen.

Lambert was still _so angry_ about that. Things had mostly been going fine, and then Rogen had gotten his stupid idea, and now Lambert was going to have to waste his time and energy on trying to avoid a person who wanted to hit him. _Again._ Rogen hadn’t tried to hurt Lambert since that first day, sticking to glaring and some muttered insults, but experience told Lambert it was only a matter of time, especially now that their punishment work was done. In the meantime, of course, there was training to do, and Lambert wasn’t about to let _anyone_ make him a failure.

It was morning training again. Varin hadn’t said anything about Lambert’s bruising fading faster than it ever had before, but Lambert didn’t kid himself that the Witcher hadn’t noticed. Varin _was_ the kind of alert that he was trying to get them to be. He technically had an advantage, with the enhanced senses and all, but if they went through the Trials and lived, they’d have those too.

The black eye _had_ reminded him how to keep track of things even when he couldn’t see them. He hadn’t had much practice of that lately, and he wasn’t really sure how to feel about it. The Witchers, who took kids that were never seen again, and they were so— 

“Right then, children, we’re going to be holding partnered sparring today,” Varin snapped, breaking Lambert out of his thoughts. 

Lambert couldn’t help but scowl as he got paired up with Rogen again. It felt like that was happening more often than usual lately. Rogen sneered at him as they lined up, and when Kavan called “go!”, he immediately lunged forward with a strike. Lambert, having anticipated that, spun to the side and smacked Rogen in the back of the knee with the point of his practice sword. When Rogen stumbled, Lambert brought the sword back around to his throat. Rogen snarled and shoved the tip of the sword away, but Varin called out.

“Rogen, you’re dead. Get back up and reset, and none of that idiotic lunging this time.”

The next bout, Rogen threw in several feints at Lambert’s sides, some of which were effective. Ribs aching even through the padded jacket, Lambert took advantage of how far Rogen had to bring the sword around for his favorite follow-up strike and jabbed him in the soft spot in the middle of his chest, leaving him wheezing. He tapped the sword against Rogen’s neck again and backed up to wait until Rogen could breathe.

Rogen managed to get Lambert on the next round with a strike Lambert couldn’t quite dodge, but Lambert won the one after that.

Rogen was bright red in the face and looked mad enough to spit, but he didn’t say anything as they backed up for the fifth round. He started out a lot more cautiously, trying to get Lambert to chase after him. Lambert didn’t feel like taking the bait. Rogen was a lot bigger than him, and it was a lot easier to wait for the other kid to make a mistake than it was to try to overpower him. Besides, he’d probably give in to impatience soon.

Sure enough, after several tentative feint-and-retreat maneuvers, Rogen stormed forward to start hitting a lot harder. Lambert ducked out of the way and slashed at Rogen’s side, connecting a little clumsily but had enough to make the boy flinch. Rogen spun, bringing his sword around in a huge arc, and Lambert stepped back to dodge it and felt his foot shoot out from under him.

He might have yelped as he landed split-legged on the stone of the courtyard, grimly clinging to his weapon. He was _sure_ he saw a nasty look on Rogen’s face as the boy brought up the training sword in a heavy overhand swing.

 _Fuck that,_ Lambert thought through the shooting pains going up his legs, and brought his sword straight up to hit Rogen right in the apex of his legs. Rogen crumpled, dropping his sword as he curled up on himself with a whimper.

“Would either of you care to tell me what the hell that was?” Lambert heard, and looked up to see Varin glaring at them.

_Fuck._

* * *

_I hate ice,_ Lambert thought bitterly as he limped into the hall for lunch. He and Rogen had both been kept after for additional work; Lambert had been wrapped up in more pads and had to practice footwork across the entire courtyard, doing push-ups every time he slipped. He still thought he’d gotten a few bruises.

Lambert ate his lunch sulkily, and his mood still hadn’t improved by the time Tomas collected them for afternoon work. Unusually, the Witcher was wearing a set of armor and his swords.

“Wrap up warm, kids, then meet me by the main doors,” Tomas said once they were all together, which made Lambert curious despite himself. All of the keep’s courtyards and walkways were cleared of snow for the moment, as far as Lambert knew, and everything else he could think of was at least partly indoors.

The others seemed excited at the prospect, though, so Lambert trotted after, trying to parse the chatter.

“Mistletoe—” he heard Haken say, and it clicked. Every so often the Bastion kids got a practical lesson in botany, usually by having them go out and collect herbs for use at the keep. Lambert hadn’t been expecting that Witchers would use mistletoe for anything, but— well, maybe everyone hanging it up near the winter solstice for protection or whatever had gotten the idea from somewhere.

Lambert’s clothes—the ones he’d had, and the ones Jorik had bought at the Temple of Melitele—weren’t warm enough for winter in the mountains on their own, so he had to use the extras the Witchers had on hand. They were all good quality and neatly mended, but Lambert couldn’t help but think about who exactly they might have belonged to, once upon a time.

 _Mistletoe grows up in trees,_ Lambert thought to himself, and tried to make sure that he’d still be able to climb in the clothes he was putting on. If he could wear his new scarf… he stood there for a minute, debating with himself. 

Rogen jeered at him as he walked towards the door, and Lambert glared after him, a spark of anger starting to eat at him. Why did he have to be so careful about Rogen’s feelings? He’d given about as good as he’d got during their fight, and he was doing better than Rogen on almost everything in training, even though he’d been here less than half a year. The Masters hadn’t hit _any_ of them yet, not even over a fight, unlike the Temple of Melitele had wanted to— so why should Lambert let Rogen push him around?

 _What was there to be afraid of?_ Them kicking him out? If he stayed, he’d probably die in the Trials anyway. Why should he let what some stupid asshole thought rule whatever was left of his life? 

Lambert waited for Moritz to leave the room, then walked over to his bed, pulling the scarf out from the hole in the pallet and wrapping it defiantly around his neck. Let Rogen choke on his own jealousy.

“Wow, nice scarf!” Haken said when Lambert joined the little knot of kids near the front hall door.

Lambert gave Haken a slightly suspicious look but nodded, which got him a smile back.

“I don’t remember seeing that before,” Rogen said.

“Wasn’t cold enough,” Lambert said shortly, staring him right in the eye. Rogen blinked, looking a little taken aback

“Talk about fashion another time,” Tomas interrupted. “Come on.”

They all followed after the Witcher, through the covered walkway to the inner gate, then along a larger walkway past the horse stables and to the entrance of the keep.

“We’re going to be using crampons today,” Tomas said, pulling a set of—metal spikes?—out of a chest near the gate. “Lambert, come here and I’ll show you how they go on.”

As it turned out, the spikes tied on to the bottom of the boots. Lambert eyed his now very sharp feet with some bemusement.

“Keep your stance a little wider and your knees loose,” Tomas said. “On flat ground, try to get all the spikes in. If you’re going up a steep hill, kick in the front points.”

Lambert nodded and waited for everyone else to get started down the trail up to the keep before moving himself, so he could watch the way they were walking. Once he started getting the hang of having a bunch of blades strapped to his boots, it _was_ easier going on the hard-packed, icy snow.

“Don’t get out of earshot of each other,” Tomas said. “If you need to stop to clear your boots, let someone know. We’re not late enough in the season yet that the wolves will be desperate, but there’s no point tempting fate.”

 _Wolves,_ Lambert thought. _Well, I heard them on the way up._

The little group crunched their way through the valley, heading up towards the lake. It was bitterly cold out, but the sky had cleared off from the morning and the air was mostly still, so it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. Lambert turned his face up a little, enjoying the sun on his face after having spent so much time indoors or under clouds. His legs were aching a bit by the time Tomas stopped—he was still kind of sore from all the slips during training, and the wider stance he had to take for the crampons wasn’t helping.

“Mistletoe,” Tomas said, gesturing to the woods stretching back from the lakefront. “It’ll be easiest to find on trees that have shed their leaves, since it grows all year round. White berries. Best to harvest sprigs with at least one berry on them. Don’t eat it or rub your eyes after you’ve been handling it, it’s poisonous enough that you’d be ill for a while. And don’t forget the climbing rules.”

Lambert couldn’t help but roll his eyes a little—he’d been climbing trees for _ages_ and he hadn’t gotten hurt falling from one in years—but it wasn’t worth protesting. Maybe especially since there was a lot more snow and ice here than there was in Temeria.

He drifted along the edge of the little groups the other kids bunched into, trying to stay away from Rogen and Pip. He’d dealt with Rogen enough for the day. Jonah and Moritz gave him a bit of a look, but they didn’t tell him to leave as they collected some pitons and headed into the woods, keeping the sun in front of them. Lambert pulled out his new knife and left a careful mark on a tree. Just in case.

Lambert turned his face upwards to search the treetops as they walked. There were a lot of pines up this high, but Tomas had taken them to a spot where there were at least some bare-branched trees.

“That might be some,” Moritz said, pointing up. 

Lambert squinted. “Pretty sure that’s a squirrel nest. It’s all brown.”

“Hmph,” Moritz grumped, but he didn’t argue. 

Thankfully it didn’t take longer than a minute or two of crunching their way through the snowy forest to find a clump.

“Okay, stand back,” Lambert said, putting the knife away and grabbing the pitons.

“Fine with me,” Jonah said, backing away from the tree trunk.

Lambert grunted and tried to figure out if he wanted to take the spikes off his boots or not. A closer look at the trunk, slick with ice, convinced him that he might do better to keep them on. It did take a little bit of work to figure out how to climb in the spikes. Lambert gritted his teeth as a foot slipped and his leg muscles throbbed again.

Moritz yelped.

“Moritz, are you standing under me,” Lambert asked grimly.

“No!” came the defensive reply.

 _He better not,_ Lambert thought. _I don’t want to get blamed if I fall on him._

Lambert swung his foot back around and dug the tips of the spikes through the ice, into the trunk. He carefully tested the grip, and sighed with relief as it held. He pulled his other foot free and got that one into the trunk, a little further up, then one of the pitons, then the other... Once Lambert had the hang of it, climbing was maybe even a little easier than usual. He was at the mistletoe almost as quickly as he would have been if he’d been climbing on his own, on a less-slippery tree. 

Lambert swung a leg over the branch with the mistletoe growing on it and settled himself firmly. He pulled out his knife to carefully trim bits from the green ball—he didn’t want to take all of it, so that it could grow back for next time they needed it, but he could probably take quite a bit.

After he’d collected as much as he figured he could, he scanned the branches for more. Nothing in this tree, but he could see some green in the bare boughs of another tree off to the side. Lambert fixed the location in his mind and clambered down.

“There’s more in that one,” he said, pointing.

“You’re so good at climbing,” Moritz said as they tromped over to the new tree, Lambert having left a marker indicating they’d gone off of the straight line they’d been traveling in so far.

Lambert gave Moritz a look. “I’m not collecting yours for you.”

That, of course, got Moritz complaining, but at least he actually climbed the tree.

They continued along, Lambert carefully marking whenever they made a turn, being sure not to wander too far away from what they could hear from the others. Lambert’s bag was about half-full, and the three of them were standing at the base of a massive tree covered in balls of mistletoe when Lambert noticed that it was getting dark and even colder—the sun had abruptly faded behind a wall of mist. 

“Fog’s come up,” Lambert said, frowning.

“Are we near the lake?” Jonah said.

“We should be,” Lambert said slowly. “From my markers—” _and when we saw the sun—_ “we’ve turned back around towards where we started.”

“But the trees should be thinning out if we’re getting near the lake,” Moritz said.

Lambert looked behind them. Their footprints were right there. “Let’s backtrack a little, just to the last marker, since we can see where we’ve gone.”

“Why?” Moritz asked. “I can still hear everyone else.”

“What?” Lambert said.

“Listen,” Moritz said.

Lambert closed his eyes, and heard kids laughing and chattering. But the sound was coming from their left—where, if Lambert wasn’t completely mistaken, the lake should be.

“Something seems weird about this…” Jonah said.

“What do you _mean_ , weird? We’re still in earshot—”

There was a particularly loud shriek of laughter, one that didn’t sound like anything Lambert had heard from the others before.

“—so why don’t we just—”

“Shut _up,_ Moritz!” Lambert snapped, and listened as hard as he could. 

This time he managed to hear words. “Drakk, no fair!” the voice called. Lambert felt like a lump of snow had dropped down his collar.

“Get into the tree,” Lambert said to Moritz and Jonah. “Right now.”

“What?” Jonah said.

“ _Don’t fucking argue with me!_ ” Lambert hissed venomously.

Either his tone or his expression convinced them, because both of them headed for the massive trunk and dug their toes in. Lambert stood as close as he dared and started up as soon as the two got about a bodylength and a half up.

“Bert, what—” Moritz said.

“ _Shut. Up._ ”

Thankfully, Moritz shut up. The pair wanted to stop at the first branch, but Lambert pushed them higher; he didn’t know what was down there, but he wanted to be as far away from it as possible.

“Lambert, what’s going on?” Jonah asked, once the three of them were clumped together on a branch big enough to hold them and high enough up that Lambert thought they might be safe. It was cold and prickly and despite them brushing the snow off as best as they could it was still promising to soak into their trousers.

“I don’t know what’s out there, but _something_ is. And it’s not the other Bastion kids.”

“But we can hear—”

“We can hear _something_ , Moritz, but last I checked none of us are named Drakk,” Lambert snapped. “And those voices are coming from where the lake should be— none of us should be fucking around over there.”

“But then—” Moritz said.

“It’s gotta be some kind of monster,” Jonah finished.

“Yeah,” Lambert said. “I don’t know if it knows we’re here or not, but—”

“Better to act like it does,” Jonah said quietly.

“So do we just— stay up here until it’s gone?” Moritz asked. “Shouldn’t we call for help?”

Jonah and Lambert looked at each other. Lambert made a little ‘come on’ gesture with his hand— you picked things up, living at the keep, and the Witchers had a bunch of songs about monsters that they worked by, but he’d been here the least amount of time.

Jonah gulped, just barely visible under the layers he was wearing. “So it can imitate people’s voices.”

“And if we’re not completely turned around, it’s near the lake,” Lambert added.

“Wraiths?” Moritz asked.

“The voices sound happy, though,” Jonah said, and he peered off into the distance. “But—” Jonah looked around. “The _fog_ ,” he said. “Foglets can make illusions. Like in the song, remember? _Foglet, foglet, moondust, Quen, found in swamp and foggy fen, watch your step, don't watch the light, and you'll survive the darkest night._ ”

“Fuck,” Lambert said. He hadn’t gone to the lake during the summer, but he remembered Tomas telling Owen and Sven to turn back immediately if it was foggy there.

“But illusions we can _hear_?” Moritz said.

Jonah and Moritz argued quietly about audible illusions, Jonah half-singing some more of the song. Lambert was about to interrupt, to at least get an idea of what it could be if it wasn’t a foglet, when he saw a light in the distance. He poked the other two, who quit arguing for a second to look at him, and pointed. They all sat in silence as the light drew closer, all trying to see what it was.

Eventually the light drew close enough that they could make out a lumpy head, long, long claws, and a terrible, misshapen torso that looked like something had torn out all the flesh from the bottom of the ribs down. Bizarrely, the light they’d seen was shining _out_ of the gaping hole in the torso. The monster paused, looking around curiously, then half faded away into the mist. A moment later, two young boys sprang into existence, chasing each other and shrieking with glee.

“Never mind,” whispered Jonas. “That’s a foglet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Yes, foglets can do that.](https://youtu.be/kk54SM6ZrrA?t=396)
> 
> And many thanks to... Sonnet, I believe, in my Discord server, for the song lyrics!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....Yeah this took much longer than expected. Sorry guys.

The three kids huddled against each other on the branch. The two illusions below them laughed and played, looking light and warm when outlined against the snow and freezing fog and gloom. But the illusions’ feet didn’t leave prints in the snow, and their skin didn’t pale or flush with the cold.

“Does it know we’re here?” whispered Moritz.

Lambert looked at Jonah, who shrugged.

“I don’t… think so,” Lambert said, as softly as he could. “Stay quiet so it doesn’t find out. Don’t wanna find out if foglets can climb.”

Moritz nodded, and clung tighter to Jonah.

They sat in terrified silence, melting snow and ice slowly soaking into their breeches, as the illusions slowly faded and the foglet emerged from the mist again. It tilted its head and made a hissing noise. Lambert could feel Jonah’s grip on his arm getting tighter, but he didn’t protest— he was a little worried he was accidentally going to tear loose a chunk of bark from the tree trunk, which he was gripping nearly as hard. The monster really _did_ look like it had had most of its torso scooped out, even seeing it from closer up.

_Where does it keep its stomach?_ Lambert couldn’t help wondering. 

The foglet made another little noise, then started moving. Lambert held his breath as it walked _right_ underneath the branch the three of them were perched on, its feet crunching in the snow, and was half-afraid to turn his head to watch it as it went past.

Thankfully, Moritz waited a minute before he said anything. “Is it leaving?” he whispered.

“There’s still all the fog,” Lambert said, and all three of them jumped as the sound of children playing started again.

“At least it doesn’t know where we are,” Jonah said.

“So we just… wait?” Moritz asked.

“It’ll get bored of looking, eventually,” Jonah said, half like he was trying to convince himself.

Lambert didn’t say anything, but he was thinking of how dark it was going to get soon, as the sun set— and, even if the foglet left, trying to get back to the keep at night. 

The kids all waited in uneasy silence as the sound of the illusions moved from spot to spot around them. The fog never actually faded, and it got darker and darker and colder and colder. The snow had thoroughly melted and soaked into Lambert’s breeches. Moritz was shivering hard enough that Lambert could feel it even with Jonah between him and the other kid.

“I’m s-so _cold_ ,” Moritz whispered miserably. “Why won’t it go _away?_ ”

Lambert was grimly silent. He didn’t know enough about monsters to want to say his guess aloud— if they’d wandered into what the foglet thought of as its territory, that they might never see the fog clear. 

“I don’t think we can wait until morning,” Jonah said, with a shiver of his own. “It’s just going to get colder.”

“And Tomas isn’t looking for us,” Lambert said, with a cold knot in his stomach. It was definitely past time that the Witcher would have collected all of them to head back to the keep, and they hadn’t so much as _heard—_

Moritz stifled a sob.

“I left trail markers,” Lambert said, flexing his cold-stiff fingers in his mittens. “If the foglet hasn’t left, we should wait until it’s a ways off and try to leave, quietly.”

“The wolves,” Jonah said, but Lambert shook his head.

“I doubt wolves want to deal with _that_ ,” he said, jerking his chin at the sound of children playing. “We just have to get to the boathouse. We can bar the doors, wait until someone shows up in the morning.”

Moritz was definitely crying now. “W-we have to,” he said.

Lambert wasn’t sure if he should agree with Moritz out loud, but the other kid was right. This was their best shot. 

“Let’s wait until it moves again,” Lambert said instead. “Make sure it’s not coming back this way.”

Moritz and Jonah both nodded, barely visible in the gloom under the trees.

“Try to move a little,” Jonah said. “Make sure we can climb down.”

Wasn’t bad advice. Lambert shifted slowly, wincing as numbness was replaced by pins-and-needles. Jonah hissed a bit in pain as he slowly swung his legs, and Moritz sniffled harder as he shifted. Lambert couldn’t help biting down on his tongue as his toes started stinging like mad too, but eventually the pain faded enough that he could stop. The other two had mostly settled too, and silence crept in like the fog.

“Wait,” Lambert said, realizing that the illusion-sounds had stopped too.

They all turned their heads toward where the last of the noises had come from, listening as hard as they could. After a moment there was a sound— a _different_ sound, almost a thump, and an eerie cry that must have come from the foglet.

“Lambert? Jonah? Moritz?” came a voice from the darkness.

“Is— is it real?” Moritz asked, trembling.

“The fog’s lifting,” Jonah said, and it _was_ , weak starlight beginning to filter though the tree branches.

The three children stared into the woods where the voice had come from.

“”If it’s s-still an illusion—” Moritz started.

“I don’t think it’d know our names,” Jonah said. “Not all together like that.”

Lambert took a deep breath, ignoring the twist in his gut that thought this was a bad idea, even with all the evidence. “We’re over here!” he called.

There was silence for another moment, then the voice again. “Stay where you are, we’ll come to you!”

“Gladly,” Lambert muttered.

“Any other monsters?” someone else said.

“Don’t think so!” Jonah responded.

It wasn’t very long before Lambert heard the crunching of snow under feet, and two dark shapes came into view. There was a bit of murmuring, and a flash of fire lit a small lantern. The light it cast wasn’t massive, but it was warm, unlike the glow that had emanated from the foglet, and it was enough to illuminate the faces of the two Witchers standing there— Kavan and Jorik.

Despite everything, something unknotted in Lambert’s stomach, looking down into Jorik’s face. He couldn’t help feeling like events were repeating themselves, sitting up in a tree with Jorik and a dead monster on the ground nearby. Jorik smiled up at the three of them, somewhat lopsided. Lambert thought maybe he was remembering the nekkers too.

“You kids okay?” he asked.

“C-cold,” Mortiz said.

“Not surprising, in this weather,” Jorik said.

“Can you get down on your own?” Kavan asked.

Lambert ground his teeth. “We got _up_ here, didn’t we?”

“And have been sitting there in the cold for quite some time,” Kavan pointed out in a level tone that just annoyed Lambert more. “If you’ll take off the crampons and drop, we can catch you.”

Lambert scowled and grabbed his pitons. He could make it down just _fine_. He just needed to keep moving. Stab into the trunk, shift the furthest limb, stab that in, repeat—

He was maybe halfway down when he slipped.

“ _Fuck!_ ”

At least there was plenty of snow at the base of the tree, maybe he’d land on that and not a root— 

Rather to his surprise, Lambert landed with an _oof_ in someone’s arms. He opened his eyes and looked up into Jorik’s face.

“I’m honestly impressed,” Jorik said quietly. “Don’t think I’d have even made it this far when I was your age.”

Lambert, unsure of what to make of that sentence, frowned and looked to the side. Kavan had caught Moritz and was holding his arms out for Jonah.

“Why are you out here?” Lambert demanded.

“We thought you might’ve been resourceful,” Jorik said, after a moment’s pause. 

“And without any conclusive evidence of deaths, we figured we should have a look as soon as we could,” Kavan said, catching Jonah as he dropped.

Lambert frowned again, but he _supposed_ it made some sense. It was more than he’d expected, anyway. Certainly his father never would have looked for him if he’d gotten lost, and given how many kids _died_ in the Trials, he hadn’t exactly been expecting that anyone would care if a few died early. Maybe they just wanted as many shots as they could get.

...But Jorik and Kavan at least had thought it was worth looking for him and Johan and Moritz. That was— well, it was _something._

"We need to head back,” Kavan said. “Johan, climb on my back but be careful of the swords.”

“Right,” Jorik said. “Here, Lambert, will you take those crampons off?”

The trip back to the keep was weird. Mostly quiet, except for the crunch of feet on the icy ground, a wind that was starting to pick up down the valley, and a call from a wolf, far in the distance. Jorik and Kavan moved _fast_ , fast enough that Lambert had to close his eyes and turn his head into Jorik’s gambeson against the stinging of the cold air.

Lambert looked up when they came to a halt; the walls of Kaer Morhen loomed over them, enveloping them in shadows. 

“Hey, we’re back,” Jorik called. “Open up.”

“And with all three of them?” said the Witcher who’d been standing watch. “I’m impressed.”

Lambert opened his mouth, ready to ask what he meant by that, but to his surprise he couldn’t make himself speak. They were back. They were— all of them were back at Kaer Morhen, and the foglet hadn’t even scratched them and Jorik had come out and _looked_ and had carried him all the way back, all the way back _h_ —

The creak of the portcullis opening broke off his thought, but he was shivering now and he couldn’t make himself stop. It was _pathetic_ , and he tried not to cling to Jorik. The Witcher was probably going to put him down soon, and he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to walk, but he wasn’t going to beg to be carried.

Jorik didn’t put him down, though, and despite Lambert’s best attempt to keep track, everything started to blur a little. The warm air inside the keep _stung_ , and there were way too many Witchers looking at them. They weren’t in the hall long at least, although the hot, damp air from the hot springs stung even _worse._

“Frostbite,” Kavan said, after getting all three of them stripped and soaking their extremities in lukewarm water that still felt like it was burning. “Not too bad, but be careful until it heals. Lambert, good job with the scarf.”

Lambert couldn’t help a bit of satisfaction at that.

Eventually, the warmth stopped hurting and Lambert stopped shaking and just wanted to go to sleep. He barely managed to down the sandwich someone insistently pressed on him, and stumbled into the Bastion dorm with eyes mostly closed.

“Lambert?” he heard Moritz say, right as he was dropping off. 

He grunted in response.

“Thanks,” Moritz said quietly.

Lambert was still trying to think of how to respond when he fell asleep.

* * *

Lambert remembered immediately what had happened when he woke the next morning; he was sore all over from sitting in the tree for hours, and as he looked at his fingers he realized he had blisters on them. Training today was going to _suck_.

Tomas held out an arm as Lambert walked stiffly towards the door.

“Not today,” he said. “You three aren’t in the shape for swordwork, and we need to have a talk about what happened.”

Lambert scowled. That didn’t sound good.

The conversation was _very_ uncomfortable, especially when Moritz and Jonah both emphasized his insistence that they get into the tree, but Tomas didn’t fuss much.

“You three get to spend today in the library.” Tomas paused for a minute, then said, very quietly, “I’m glad you all made it.”

Lambert scowled at the floor. _Glad_. Like it mattered. They were probably going to die in spring anyway.

His mood didn’t lighten when they got to the library; the Witchers working there were _obsessive_ about all the books, and he couldn’t even read them anyway. He—gently, the one-armed librarian, Felix, was _intense_ when he was upset—pushed the book he’d been given to the middle of the table and laid his head down on his arms. Maybe he could just nap or something.

“Lambert?” Moritz said. 

Lambert groaned. “What?”

Moritz was actually quiet for a moment, and Lambert looked up to see him chewing on his lip.

“You can’t… read, can you?” he asked.

Lambert scowled. “No. I can’t. Where would I have _learned?_ It’s not like I’m some noble’s kid—”

“Whoa,” Jonah broke in. “He’s not— it just. Explains a little.”

Lambert switched his glare to Jonah instead.

“You know… we could read to you, if you wanted,” Moritz said, bolder now that Lambert wasn’t looking at him.

“Then you won’t get in trouble when they quiz us,” Jonah added.

“I don’t need you trying to keep me out of trouble,” Lambert said.

“So you’d rather be bored all day and _not_ learn about—” Moritz squinted at the cover of the book Lambert had pushed across the table, “Monſters and Beaſts of the Valley of the Ancient Sea in the…”

“Gȯry Sine,” Jonah said. “The Blue Mountains.”

“Yeah. Rather than learn about monsters in the Kaer Morhen valley?”

Lambert straightened a bit. He _did_ want to know more about what else was lurking around outside the keep. He’d had to rely on Jonah yesterday, and even though that hadn’t turned out too badly, he would rather know for himself what he might have to deal with. And— well. It had been _interesting,_ learning about things with Jorik. It was still interesting, when Witchers explained why they had to do something a certain way.

“...Okay,” he said.

Moritz smiled at him. Lambert was still blinking, taken aback, when Jonah pulled the book over to himself and opened it to begin reading.

“The following being part four of an account of the author’s travels in the Gȯry Sine, known also locally as the Blue Mountains, and the beasts and monsters encountered there…”

The writing was in what Jonah called “an old style” and Moritz called “annoying”, but after several pages Lambert thought he maybe had the hang of understanding it.

“Wait,” Lambert said, after Jonah read the last of a long section about drowners that ended with “And lacking large communities among the valleys of these mountains, I am drawn to conclude that these beasts are not, as commonly believed, reanimated corpses of drowned men, but a species in their own right; which feeds on fish and those larger creatures they can scavenge or drown which approach the waters in which they live.”

“Yeah?” Jonah asked.

“I,” Lambert started, then stopped as he realized, belatedly, that of _course_ drowners weren’t drowned people. For one thing, nobody had drowned near where he’d lived in _years_ , but the half-elven merchant had talked about there being a small—colony? of the monsters not too far away.

Lambert looked at the solid wood of the table, feeling his face heat up. There was silence for a few seconds.

“Oh!” Moritz said. “I don’t know why he doesn’t mention it, but did you know drowners come in different patterns, like fish do?”

Lambert looked up, wary but interested.

“In Kerack they’re mostly solid colors, blue to brown,” Moritz continued. “But some of the ones at the lake up here have spots.”

“Really?” Lambert asked. He hadn’t seen any drowners so far.

“Yeah!” Moritz said. “I don’t know why this guy doesn’t mention it, he was from Oxenfurt or something.”

“Well, isn’t this part four of his accounts or whatever?” Lambert asked, interested despite himself. “Maybe he mentions drowners looking different in one of the earlier parts.”

“Let’s ask,” Jonah said, and hopped out of his chair. 

Lambert stared after him, just too late to say that it didn’t matter _that_ much. He looked to Moritz, instead, and Moritz grinned at him.

“Want to see if there are any interesting bits while Jonah’s talking to Felix?” he asked, completely unconcerned.

“Interesting bits?” Lambert asked.

“Fights, weird gossip, stuff like that,” Moritz said.

Lambert thought for a minute. “I’d rather skip and find more monsters.”

“We can do that!” Moritz said, and started carefully turning pages.

Lambert shifted to try and look at the page. Reading was so _weird_ — how the hell anyone knew which of the apparently many pronunciations to use for a letter was a mystery to him.

“Oh, here’s something about harpies,” Moritz said, and looked over the page. “Apparently they got too close to a nest or something and the harpies started following and trying to steal shiny stuff. Had to use arrows to drive them off.”

“Huh,” Lambert said. “I wonder if birds do that too.” 

“Crows do, I think,” Moritz said. “Dunno about other birds.”

“I bet you could test it,” Lambert said. He didn’t have much that was shiny even now, but maybe he could borrow something.

“Oh,” Moritz said. “We _could_ test it.”

Lambert looked up, a little startled again. He hadn’t thought that Moritz would be interested.

“Since we take care of the pigeons and the chickens anyway,” Moritz continued, “We could just find something shiny and see if they want it—”

“Don’t tease the birds,” said Felix from behind them.

Lambert couldn’t help jumping. He hadn’t heard the younger librarian approaching at _all_.

“In any case, Jonah informed me you were looking for the rest of Cettolm Witeck’s accounts, wanted to see if he had more information on drowner patterning?”

Lambert looked at Moritz, who nodded, and gave a tentative nod of his own.

“Witeck didn’t have much about drowner coloration—how the man could write every detail of a two hour-ambush _but_ patterning and coloration I’ll never know—but I have a couple of journals that do describe regional coloration. If you damage them you’re going to be waxing thread for binding until the snow melts.”

Lambert saw Moritz wince. “We’ll be careful.”

“Careful is good, and no damage is better,” Felix said, with a bit of a smile, and deposited a couple of volumes on the table. “Let me know if you need more.”

“Thank you Felix,” Moritz and Jonah said, and Lambert chimed in a beat behind them.

Felix smiled and gave a little wave, and headed off into the shelves again.

“Okay,” Moritz said, and looked at Jonah. “Jonah, you get to read.”

Jonah groaned but carefully picked up the top book from the little stack Felix had left and gently paged through it. “Okay, so here’s someone who was in Cintra…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Felix is Laurelnose's OC,](https://laurelnose.tumblr.com/tagged/felix) and I hope I did him justice. And that I didn't screw up too badly on the library stuff.  
> (The journals they get to look at are not actually part of the rare books, they're technically replaceable if the worst should somehow happen... but the worst had better damn well not happen.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Learning Experiences](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26121523) by [bomberqueen17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17)




End file.
